Beyond the Third
by Eirian1
Summary: Cornered in a narrow gully on a planet with three Stargates, Ronon, Mckay and Sheppard find their only escape is through the third Gate. What they find as they step through the wormhole is not at all what they expected. Virtual Season 5 Episode 7
1. Act 1

Author's disclaimer: I do not own _Stargate Atlantis_ and its associated characters. MGM does, for which, for the most part, they have my utmost respect. No copyright infringement is intended in writing these stories.

My deepest respect also goes to the talented actors that brought to life the characters we see in _Stargate Atlantis._ My portrayal of the characters here is based on my perception of the work of Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa, Rachel Luttrell, Paul McGillion, David Hewlett, Amanda Tapping, Robert Picardo, Connor Trinneer and Christopher Heyerdahl. Without these people and those that came before them, there would have been no _Atlantis_ as we know it today.

Other assorted original characters (i.e. those that don't really appear in the show) are my own creation, and they, along with the original material presented here are © Eirian Phillips 2009.

Story is rated for mature readers, according to whatever rating system is adopted these days for Fan Fiction. It changes on a site by site basis… It was so much easier way back when…

There may be other virtual seasons of _SGA_ out there in cyberspace. Some may even be unofficially official. However, as a writer, I don't believe that this should discourage others from having their own ideas about things. Mine are presented here.

I can be reached at Feedback is always welcome and emails are usually answered.

Characters and events are purely fictitious, and any similarity to anyone living, transformed, dead, cloned or in any alternate universe or timeline is entirely coincidental.

Stargate Atlantis

**Beyond the Third**

Different Is Not Always Better

_"All right. This isn't good. The most elaborate practical joke of all time, or I'm in serious trouble here."_

_John Sheppard – The Last Man_

**Act 1**

The uneven terrain made the desperate flight from the trouble all the more difficult. At each hurried step, debris from the impact of blaster fire flew against his exposed skin, reminding him how little the Wraith seemed interested in taking prisoners. Sheppard swore softly and turned once more to let off a stream of bullets behind them, while beside him, the almost reassuring musical trill of Ronon's weapon sounded time and again.

"McKay," he called to the man leading their escape, "left. Go left!"

Sheppard remembered from the reconnaissance maps that the south-easterly fork of the gulley, in the valley between the high, shielding rocks, led to more open ground, with greater vegetation cover should they need to lie low, as they would need to, if they could ever put any distance between them and their Wraith pursuers. At that point it seemed unlikely that it would happen.

An almost brutal slap against his arm snapped him back to the moment, away from his dark thoughts. They _had_ to escape. They had no choice. The Intel they carried was far too important, far too precious to allow it to fall into the hands of the Wraith.

"Go!" Ronon growled, repeating the slap and this time pushing him onward towards McKay. It was only a moment later that the big Satedan stepped between him and the Wraith gunfire, giving him cover to hurry and catch up with McKay.

The scientist was running a panicked, weaving path through the boulders that lay strewn about. They made their escape all the more difficult. With each blast, that chipped and shattered the rocks around them, McKay let out another moan or cry. He was clearly terrified.

"Keep going, Rodney," he called trying to sound reassuring. "You're doing fine."

"Oh, easy for you to say," McKay practically squawked.

"Trust me," he said a moment later, "once we get out of this gully we're home and dr—"

He broke off as the rocky ground ahead of them suddenly disintegrated in a stinging shower of mud and rocks. In almost the same moment, McKay called his name in alarm, pointing to the high rocks ahead. The rocks either side of the gulley ahead harboured poorly hidden Wraith warriors, just waiting to cut them down.

"Sheppard!"

"I see 'em," he said and swore softly before calling to Ronon. "Back it up, Chewie!"

Then he grabbed McKay by the back of his flack jacket, practically taking the other man's feet from under him as he pulled him back the way they'd come.

**

McKay let out another yell and threw his arms across his face protectively as the rocky wall beside him became a crumbling, smoking ruin. He felt the reflected heat against his arms and too much of a scientist to be much of a religious man, prayed to every god he could think of, that Ronon and Sheppard could get them out of the hopeless situation they'd gotten themselves into. Again.

"McKay!" Ronon's harsh voice, sounding more than a little irritated, called his name and then a second later the Satedan grabbed his shoulder and all but threw him around the fork in the path.

"But this—" he started, but Sheppard added momentum to the push.

"We don't have a choice, McKay," he said urgently, "It's this way or we get fried by Wraith." He paused only another second before he added, "Now go!"

Finding his feet, his balance once more, McKay launched himself along the new pathway, remembering very little from his detailed study of the mapping that recon had provided. He couldn't, however, shake the really bad feeling that settled in his gut.

Behind him, as he ran, he could hear the heavy footfalls of Sheppard and Ronon, and the rattling of their Wraith pursuers. He risked glancing back to see if he could ascertain whether their new direction proved any more successful as an escape route. His sense of timing, as always, was perfect… perfectly bad – as the ground beneath his feet gave way. He didn't even have time to cry out a warning to the others before he found himself falling, rolling head over feet down the steep rock strewn incline.

**

"Stay down."

Sheppard grabbed McKay by the shoulder and shoved him back down under the dirt and debris with which they'd covered themselves after sliding, or in McKay's case, falling, down into the ravine.

Above them he could still hear the movement of the Wraith, and from time to time, small stones skittered down like hail over their heads, tapping painfully against the back of his neck.

It would be a while before the Wraith could find a safe way down, and if they could possibly make a quiet escape from the foot of the cliff, unnoticed by their pursuers, they might stand a chance of putting some distance between them and maybe even discover a safe way to lose them once and for all.

As if to answer his thought, just a moment afterwards, Ronon slipped back into the small scrape they'd made and all but whispered, "I think there might be a way."

The whisper sounded uncomfortably loud, and Sheppard felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, certain that the Wraith above would have heard them. Yet he also knew that he could not hush the big Satedan. That sound carried more than anything at all. He tensed and tightened his grip on his P90.

"Anything's got to be better than hiding like a bug in the dirt," McKay hissed, and the irony of the statement caught Sheppard off guard, almost drawing a tense, nearly hysterical outburst from the troubled colonel. Instead he forced himself to confront the reality of their desperate situation.

There were only three of them and they were greatly outnumbered by the Wraith, ammunition was running low and having fallen into this unknown area they were hopelessly lost.

"All right," he murmured to Ronon. "What you got?"

"If we keep to the base of this cliff," Ronon nodded his head backwards indicating the steep incline at their back, "there's a narrow fissure – waterway it looks like – leads away from the area further into the gulley."

"And then what?" Sheppard asked, "We're already lost, we—"

"We'll find a way," Ronon said. "It's only a matter of time before those Wraith find a way down here."

Sheppard took a breath, bolstered by Ronon's confidence, he nodded. "These encounters are getting to be too close for my liking."

He sighed and craned his neck so that he could see up to the Wraith guarding the top of the cliff. The timing would need to be perfect. They'd have to wait until the Wraith turned away and move with as little noise as possible. For all that it was the only option they had, it was little option enough.

"It won't be easy," Ronon said, taking the thought from his mind yet again, and Sheppard turned to frown at him.

"Will you _stop_ that?" he said in worried irritation.

"What?" Ronon asked as though affronted, "I'm just telling it like it is."

"No, not that," Sheppard grumbled.

"What then?"

"Saying exactly what I'm thinking," he said.

Ronon grinned fiercely. "I'll stop if you do," he said.

"What?" Sheppard frowned and matched Ronon's originally slighted tone of voice. "I'm just—"

"When you two have quite finished the _old married couple_ routine," McKay interrupted, and glared pointedly in the direction that Ronon had indicated lay their escape.

"We go one at a time," Sheppard said in answer to McKay, once more looking up at the Wraith. "The closer to the base of this thing the better."

Ronon nodded in agreement. "It's not far to the fissure," he said.

"McKay," Sheppard hissed. "You ready?"

"Me," the scientist almost yelped, "Why me, I—?"

Even as McKay protested, Sheppard watched as the patrolling Wraith overhead began to turn. The movement caused the jagged edge of the cliff above to begin crumbling, raining further debris down on his head, threatening to send the dirt tumbling into his face, his eyes, but he couldn't look away. He had to know the exact moment the Wraith's back would be turned.

The crumbling edge proved to be their friend, as the Wraith stepped back as he turned, as though fearing he too would tumble to the gully. Sheppard's tense muscles caused a slight tremor in his hand as he signalled to McKay to move, cutting off the scientist's words.

**

McKay let out a small moan as Sheppard gave the signal, but moved none the less. He pulled himself from under the layer of dirt and stones and half stumbled, half walked, crouching and crablike, closer to the base of the cliff.

He wanted to flatten himself there, cling to the rough surface and let his position obscure him from the sight of the Wraith, but he had to keep moving; had to make the fissure Ronon had described and let that be his hiding place. It was crazy – all too much of a risk, and he wasn't a risk-taker like Sheppard and Ronon. He promised himself that if they ever made it back to Atlantis he was going to take a leaf out of Zelenka's book and simply refuse, as far as possible, to go offworld. It would all end in tears, he just knew it.

Fuelled by his mounting fears his steps quickened, and he ignored the many scrapes to his shoulders from the jagged stones and roots sticking out from the side of the rock wall that was the only guide toward his promised safety. He could hear footsteps behind him, and while rationally he knew they belonged either to Sheppard or Ronon, his overwrought imagination pictured the feeding hand of some ugly, faceless Wraith reaching for him, ready to suck the life out of him. By the time the edge of the fissure came into sight, he was moving almost at a run.

His fear evaporated; turned into mounting indignation as soon as he all but threw himself in between the two edges of the narrow crevice. Water splashed up over the top of his boots and trickled down inside to chill his ankles and toes.

"Oh great!" he moaned, and then hearing someone slip into the fissure behind him, and knowing from the accompanying grunt that it was Ronon's bulk that almost unbalanced him and sent the rest of him tumbling into the freezing water now filling his boots, he turned and snapped sarcastically, _"…a narrow fissure – waterway it looks like…_You think? Way to go, genius!"

Ronon pushed at his shoulder. "Just get moving, McKay," he said completely lacking in sympathy for his predicament.

McKay moaned and spluttered all but wordlessly for a couple of seconds, trying to force words past his righteous anger, until Sheppard hissed his name and repeated Ronon's command.

"Fine," he muttered, and turning began to move. "Just… if I catch pneumonia from this, don't say I didn't warn you."

Pulling a very sour face he began to move through the ice cold water, bending low at Ronon's insistence and leading them away from immediate danger. That should have been some satisfaction to him, but for some reason he couldn't find it in himself to summon the wherewithal to feel it.

It wasn't long before the crevice in which they made their escape widened and deepened, and they could slow their pace, walk more or less side by side, and most importantly, from McKay's perspective, get out of the chilling water.

"Of course, you realise this is going to chafe," he said as he felt the squelching with each step.

"Quit whining, McKay," Sheppard snapped back.

"Better to have chafed feet and still be alive than—" Ronon offered, sounding almost cheerful.

"Yes, thank you… so very little for your nuggets of caveman wisdom," he interrupted, in no mood for Ronon's cheery optimism.

"At least I know when we're on to a good thing," Ronon grumbled back, "don't keep… moaning all the time and—"

"Would you two knock it off," Sheppard cut in. "We did what we had to do, end of."

The three of them walked for some time afterwards in an almost resentful silence. McKay wondered about that, and then worried. Sure they bickered and they fought from time to time, but since Teyla's calming, soothing influence had left the team, the tension was there too much, too often and with no mediation. The constant, intensified pressure from the Wraith, who were like angry wasps, stirred from their nest by the ongoing harrying they were receiving at the hands of Michael and his army, did little to help and with Varnerin and Woolsey breathing down their neck the whole time…

"Little wonder, I suppose," he said aloud.

"What is?" Sheppard asked, sounding confused.

"Sorry, just... thinking aloud," McKay answered.

"About?"

"The Wraith, Michael, Atlantis, Teyla…" McKay shrugged. He had been very careful not to speak of Michael and Teyla closely together.

"So what's little wonder?" Ronon asked, and McKay was relieved that he sounded more himself.

"The tension over everything, we—" he broke off as the widened crevice suddenly became an almost circular pit surrounded by high rock walls. That wasn't the reason for his following exclamation, however. Rather it was the Stargate, standing, almost leaning against one of the rocky walls, and the pedestal standing beside it. "Oh my God, it _is_ here!"

"That's good, right?" Sheppard said, hurrying across to the Gate with McKay. "We can dial the Gate; get the hell back to Atlantis."

"Assuming the Wraith don't have one of the other Gates active, thus preventing the use of this one and— wait a minute," McKay crooned as he looked on what should have been the DHD and frowned.

"What is it?" Sheppard asked, coming to his side, and then astutely noting, "Well that's not right."

"What gave it away?" McKay said, his former sarcasm returning with all the bells and whistles of his winning charm and personality. "Maybe the singular lack of symbols on the top of the DHD, or was it just the big blue button in the middle, surprisingly not labelled, _push me._"

The pedestal that was, or should have been, the DHD was, in point of fact, exactly as he had described it. Where the dialling symbols should have been, the surface of the console was smooth, blank metal, with only the _Origin_ button clearly raised in the centre of the device. Perplexed he started to examine the pedestal itself.

"But we could still use it, right?" Sheppard said, "It's gotta go somewhere."

"Oh, sure," McKay said, crouching down to pull off the front panel of the device, "it could go anywhere, Wraith hive, pit of boiling lava, Space Gate!"

"I take your point, Rodney," Sheppard said, sounding agitated at McKay's continued sarcasm, "but we may have no other choice. Look around you. You see a way out of here? There's maybe _one_ possible pathway, and if there's anything that gets in our way, we're pretty much screwed. I'm almost out of ammo, and Ronon, while he could probably keep back half a hive, isn't invincible."

McKay pulled out a small device from his pocket, and began unwrapping wires, and trying to attach them to the dialling device even as Sheppard rambled on – only half taking in what the colonel was saying.

"If I can just… figure out where it goes…" he said.

"Well you better figure something out, McKay," Sheppard said, "this _was_ your idea after all."

"Oh, so this is all my fault now," he snapped, looking up from what he was doing.

"I didn't say that," Sheppard answered, but McKay suspected it was what he was thinking anyway. He _had_ been rather animated earlier that day.

_"Furthermore," Woolsey said, setting down his notes and looking up at each of them in turn, "I have yet to receive satisfactory psych evaluations from Professor Varnerin for any of you."_

_"Hardly surprising since the man's an a—" Sheppard began, but Woolsey continued, cutting off what was probably as astute an evaluation of the man as any._

_"And considering the outcome of the last mission undertaken by your team…"_

_McKay became lost in the study of the data on his computer tablet, filtering out the drone of Woolsey's voice as he continued to castigate them all for something that had essentially been his fault – his Intel after all._

_The data was fascinating – far more so than the meeting – the level of subspace radiation and the concentration patterns on M3F-227 were quite the anomaly. He was hard pressed to explain it unless…_

_His mind began racing and he quickly thumbed through the data a second time, putting the pieces together and coming up with an explanation that was unusual at worst and at best was a step toward the solution to a problem that had dogged them for some time._

_"Oh my God!" he exclaimed._

_"Doctor McKay?"_

_Realising he had spoken aloud, he looked around him to see all of the others staring back at him. Both Ronon and Sheppard had an expectant spark of hope in the gazes that pinned him in place, though Woolsey was frowning._

_"This is incredible," he said, getting excitedly to his feet and pacing as he went on. "Judging from the levels of subspace radiation detected on and around M3F-227, the areas of concentration… everything points to it… it's incredible. As well as a space Gate and a primary ground Gate, this is almost incontrovertible proof that the planet has a secondary Gate on the ground."_

_"Three Stargates," Woolsey said after a moment._

_"Three Gates, yes. Didn't I just say that?" McKay demanded, irritated at the man's slow-on-the-uptake grasp of the situation. "We have to investigate this."_

_"Doctor, haven't you heard anything I just said?" Woolsey snapped in annoyance._

_"What?" he said, momentarily flustered. He hadn't heard a word. He'd been too engrossed in his data, but judging from what Woolsey had been saying before he'd phased out the irritating tone he could make an educated guess. "Yes, yes of course I did, but none of that matters."_

_"I beg your pardon!" Woolsey snapped._

_"The scientific knowledge and advancement of Gate technology we could discover from this planet far outweighs any other consideration," McKay said, heedless of the thunderous expression that was appearing on Woolsey's face. "If we're going to stand a chance of finding a way around the current limitations of the Gates; gain the upper hand over the Wraith and Michael – he was a Wraith after all and uses the same tactics – we need to figure out a work-around for the automatic lockout when the Gates supersede each other. Planets with multiple Gates like this—"_

_"McKay's right," Sheppard said cutting him off. "The number of times we've been caught by this…"_

_"And you think that just because Doctor McKay can bail you out of yet another offworld ban you're going to support him," Woolsey said and sighed. "That's right, isn't it, Colonel."_

_"Look," Sheppard sat back in his seat and started the lazy explanation. "Your reasoning for the ban is a crock anyway. It was your mission that went south because your Intel was flawed. We actually came out of it better than we have a lot of other missions so you have no cause to impose the ban. Besides that, I actually happen to agree with Rodney. If we can figure out how to stop these bastards from locking us out—"_

_"All right!" Woolsey sighed again, and spread his hands. "But seriously, Colonel Sheppard, you __**will**__ submit to those evaluations and—"_

_"Not with that man," Sheppard argued. "I don't trust him, none of us do… none of the other teams either. I don't care that he's been sent by the IOA. Until I get a reasonably sane psychologist…"_

_McKay couldn't help snorting, even though he was in complete agreement with Sheppard on the subject of Varnerin. Did such a thing exist?_

_"…I'm not submitting to anything of the sort."_

_"Then the chances are, Colonel Sheppard, that I'll have Major Hollick assume command, and I'll remove you from duty."_

_"Like hell you will," Sheppard countered, standing up and staring down at Woolsey._

_"Look," McKay cut in. While he realised this was an important argument, he was anxious to get started on his investigation of the Gated world. "Can we come back to this…? The longer we wait around here the longer it'll be before I can come up with a solution to the Wraith lockout problem."_

He'd tried to thank Sheppard for backing him up as they'd hurriedly left the Conference Room. It was then that Sheppard had dropped his bombshell… that while he _did_ agree with Rodney's reasoning for coming to the planet, it was another matter entirely that fuelled his support.

_"Don't thank me, McKay… you can thank Michael," Sheppard said as they walked toward the Equipment Room._

_McKay frowned. "What do you mean, thank Michael? Like I'd ever consider pissing on him even if he were on fire, let alone thanking him for anything."_

_Sheppard chuckled._

_"Did you even consider why there was so much data on M3F-227 in your system?" When McKay shook his head, Sheppard continued, "It's there because it's one of the locations we suspect has one of Michael's hidden facilities."_

_"Oh great," McKay grumbled. "So what you're telling me is that the real reason you're going there is so that you can investigate what's left of it and nothing to do with the three Gates after all."_

_"Not entirely," Sheppard hedged. "Just… kill two birds with one stone, if you know what I mean."_

McKay did.

He sighed as he tried to make sense of the symbols that began flashing on the display of his small data device as he connected it to the Gate's DHD. In the end, he supposed it didn't matter what the reason for their coming had been. It was that they were there, and he finally had access to the Gate and its data that was important.

He finally might get somewhere.

"See what you can figure out, McKay," Sheppard said at last. "Meanwhile, we'll check out an alternate escape route. Radio if you need anything."

McKay mumbled absently that he would, but already he was engrossed in trying to make sense of the telemetry that he was getting from the Gate.

**

"You really think he can do it?" Ronon asked as he and Sheppard finished the climb up the only path that led out of the valley below.

"Find a way to stop the Wraith from locking us out? I doubt it." Sheppard admitted.

The two of them set off along the track that led away from the gulley. It ran in twists and turns through narrow pathways in the rocks.

"So you really did just come here to pick over what was left of Michael's facility," he said. For a moment he wasn't sure how he should feel about that. He admitted to himself that on many occasions McKay bugged the hell out of him, but that was not a reason to be two-faced enough to allow the scientist to believe there was confidence in him that did not exist.

"Spill it," Sheppard demanded, obviously reading his face.

"Don't you think that's a little unfair to McKay?" he accused softly.

"Since when were _you_ appointed his protector?" Sheppard asked.

"It's not that," Ronon said and shook his head. "He's worked damn hard, just like the rest of us to get us all through this. He did his damndest to do right by Teyla when he figured out what had gone on with Kanaan and—"

"Look," Sheppard interrupted, "this isn't about McKay and his abilities. If anyone can figure out a way around this, then it will be McKay, but we have a lot of things to figure out right now, and if we can combine missions like this—"

"You think that if you can give Teyla a way to find her son, she'll come back to us, don't you?" Ronon said. Sheppard sighed softly, and Ronon knew that he was right. "John, you have to give her time."

"And what if it's not enough?" Sheppard asked, so quietly that Ronon almost missed it.

"It will be," he said with quiet confidence. "I know Teyla."

"Well," Sheppard sighed as he spoke, "we'll get this data back to Atlantis and let Keller look it over. Hopefully it'll help with something, even if it doesn't give us the location of the baby, and if it does, well then we can… give it to Teyla and—"

"Like I said, I know Teyla. She'll do the right thing in the en—"

Pain exploded in his side, and stole what breath he had for speaking. Around them the rocks began to move and Ronon cursed himself for the fool he'd allowed himself to be.

"Ronon!"

A second too late, Sheppard's voice rang out in warning, before the rattle of his weapon began to cut through the fog blanketed over him by the pain. As clarity returned, he snatched up his own weapon and, from point blank range, fired at the Wraith who even now tried to twist the knife he'd used to slash at Ronon's side for a second attack. He fell away, a smoking ruin, and the blade clattered to the ground.

Time and time again he pulled the trigger on his gun, taking out as many of the Wraith that were waiting in ambush; an ambush they'd almost willingly walked right into the thick of.

"Sheppard," he yelled above the sound of weapons' fire, "fall back. There are too many of them!"

As he gave the order, he began to back up himself, still firing, waiting for a chance to turn. The only way they were getting out of it was at a run. As that thought crossed his mind, he heard Sheppard's P90 tattoo falter and then cease and knew in that moment that even at a run, their escape was unlikely. It was as though the rocks themselves were melting and from the molten granite Wraith after Wraith clawed his way to birth.

That dark thought drew his eyes to the narrow neck of rocks through which he was passing, to the dark brown patches, painfully visible against their sides, and to the blinking red light from within the foreign objects haphazardly slapped against their surface. Without another moment's thought to the dangers of turning his back on the enemy, Ronon turned and ran for all he was worth.

**

"_McKay, this is Sheppard. Dial the Gate!_"

Sheppard's urgent, almost panicked voice coming from his radio made McKay all but jump out of his flack jacket. The data device slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground, pulling with it the cable by which it was attached to the dialling circuit of the FDD, as he had named the console – the Fixed Dialling Device.

"Oh great!" he said, sighing as he picked up the device and saw that his decryption program, hastily written, had managed to decipher only the first three symbols. The Gate could lead _anywhere._ Irritated at the interruption, the tone of Sheppard's voice slipping to the back of his mind, where he stored all the information he deemed unimportant, he keyed his mic. "Not a good idea, Sheppard. I still have no idea where it leads."

"_Dial the damn Gate!_" Sheppard's voice came back and, barely a second later, the ground lurched, throwing McKay against the pedestal. The sound of a nearby explosion rattled his teeth against his skull.

He needed little more convincing, and all but threw himself against the large blue button at the centre of the smooth topside of the pedestal.

Faster than he would have thought possible the planet's third Gate flash-dialled and the burst of blue seared the air in front of the ring, uncomfortably close to where McKay was standing. He thought he felt the fabric of his jacket begin to melt against his skin before the residual subspace radiation retreated again with the resolution of the stable wormhole.

In the same moment, Sheppard and Ronon came tumbling down the narrow, rocky trail they'd climbed up not too long before, and even before either of them had truly found their balance, began charging for the event horizon as though Lucifer himself were at their heels.

"McKay," Ronon gasped as he ran toward him, "Go!"

McKay hesitated, still uncertain about trusting where the wormhole led, but as Ronon came closer, and he could more clearly see the spreading bloodstain over the Satedan's side and the front of his shirt, his legs carried him almost of their own volition toward, then into, the shimmering ring of blue.

**

Sheppard skidded to a halt as he emerged from the event horizon and all but slammed into the broken shell of a Puddle Jumper that appeared to have been abandoned right in the path of the Gate's rush of initialising energy. It had been stripped – cannibalised for whatever parts could be salvaged from it and against the hull were signs of scoring, and scorching from weapons' fire.

"What the—" he breathed as he began to look around, taking in more of the Gate Room.

The area was dark, and looked and felt abandoned, but it wasn't the kind of dark that held the suggestion of a starless night outside, rather the filtered blue light that suggested—

"The city's been submerged," McKay said, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he daren't disturb whatever sleeping ghosts might inhabit this part of the city.

"A hell of a lot more than that – looks like," Ronon rumbled, still leaning on his knees, breathless from the run and from the added pain of his injuries. "This kind of… decay… didn't happen in the few hours that we've been gone, it can't have."

The columns, usually bubbling with water and filtered light, lay dormant, adding to the eerie silence that spoke of the lifelessness of what should have been a hub of activity in Atlantis. The quiet almost had a personality, like some malevolent ghost, waiting for the opportunity to pounce, injure… possess…

Ronon's words went through Sheppard. He couldn't help but recall the last time something bizarre had awaited him on the other side of a wormhole – his trip into his own future – knowledge of which still haunted him because of all the things that remained as the older McKay had warned him they would.

Sheppard looked around and shivered. He'd never liked that uncomfortable feeling of being stuck in some kind of loop - déjà vu held a particular nightmare for him - but this time he couldn't shake the suspicion that it was going to be worse than any time before.

"Toto," he said softly, looking at what remained of the Puddle Jumper in front of them, "I don't think we're in Kansas any more."

"What… you mean…?" McKay asked, swallowing hard as he apparently caught on to what Sheppard was saying.

"See if you can," Sheppard gestured up the stairs to the Control Room, "access the city's systems; figure out what went on here."

"Right," McKay answered, businesslike. He moved around the side of the wrecked Jumper and headed for the unresponsive steps.

"What are we gonna—" Ronon started.

"We're going to get you to the infirmary, find something to help with that wound," Sheppard answered, but Ronon shook his head.

"I'm all right," he insisted.

"You're bleeding."

"I've had worse," Ronon said. "I just don't think we should split up until we know what's going on."

"No, we—"

"There's a first aid kit in the Conference Room," Ronon told him. "It's good enough."

Sheppard sighed. "All right, just…" he shrugged, and followed Ronon, who was already mounting the stairs toward where McKay was gingerly trying to access the city's main computer.

**

As he reached the top of the stairs Ronon was momentarily stunned into immobility. He slowly turned his head from one side to the other. He'd seen the Control Room in various states of disarray, but never quite beset by the _decay_ evident there, which McKay's hesitancy at touching the city's computer systems only seemed to underline.

Moving left, he couldn't help but raise a hand to touch the casing on a bank of control panels that were smashed and burned as though some kind of short circuit had ripped through their innards. He tilted his head as he examined them more closely. The smallest scrap of leather was trapped between the casing and one of the circuit boards, and beside his hand the slightest smudge of a bloodstain, dried and fading, caught his eye.

"Ronon?" Sheppard's voice interrupted his worried contemplation.

"There was some kind of fight here," he answered. He was slow to take his hand from where it rested as his eyes swept around the rest of the Control Room.

"Come on," Sheppard tugged at his elbow. "Let me see to that wound."

Ronon looked at Sheppard then, uncomprehending. He had completely forgotten his own physical discomfort at the greater disquiet he felt as he saw the Control Room. Sheppard waved the still-wrapped dressing at him and raised an eyebrow. He took the dressing and moved away from his friend.

"I can do it," he said.

Sheppard frowned at him as he crossed the room to where the remains of a burned out laptop perched on the corner of one of the control desks, as though someone had begun to clean up, but had not managed very much. Pieces of it… broken components lay scattered where it had obviously bounced across the floor.

"Listen, Ronon," Sheppard said, and sounded as uncomfortable as Ronon as he joined him beside the desk, "whatever happened here is long passed. There's nothing we can do about it now. We just gotta… figure out what happened to _us_ and figure out a way to get back. Perhaps McKay can—"

"Oh no McKay can't," McKay said, coming to join them. He gestured in irritation to the other control desks. "Whatever happened here, someone has rerouted control of all the major systems and access to the city's computers away from here. All I have is what was left in the buffer, and even that's fragmented."

"But the Gate—" Ronon began, glancing back down into the Gate Room.

"Oh, yeah," McKay said sarcastically, "that's the best news of all. The main control crystal is missing."

"So we find another—" Sheppard tried to interrupt.

"And as if that isn't enough," McKay went on. "Every single pathway between the DHD and the Gate on every single circuit in the console has been shorted out. If I wanted to disable the Gate, I couldn't have done a better job myself."

"Great!" Ronon rumbled, his heart sinking into his boots. "What now?"

"What now?" McKay yelped, "There _is_ no 'what now.' We're screwed is what!"

**

If it were not for the panic filling his chest, McKay would have been irritated enough with Ronon to smack the man in the mouth. He thought he'd made it clear with what he'd said how much of a mess they were in, and still Ronon's inherent optimism, as irritating as it was persistent, made him ask, _what now_?

"Pipe down, McKay," Sheppard told him, and before he could turn the angry irritation the colonel's way, Sheppard put a hand onto his shoulder, gripping him firmly. "Take a breath."

He did. It helped, but not enough, though he did glance Ronon's way in apology before nodding his thanks to Sheppard. The colonel's hand lifted away.

"Whatever it was… it was done deliberately," he explained. "Whatever happened here… whoever did this…"

"…is what we have to find out," Sheppard finished for him. "If we can't immediately access the Gate from here, we need to find another way."

"Maybe," McKay said, feeling a little soothed and comforted by the steady tone in Sheppard's voice. "If I can get enough power to the computers, I can probably download what's left in the buffers, piece together an idea of what happened here and that might… give us some clues."

"Good," Sheppard said, "good. That gives us a fighting chance. Meanwhile, Ronon and I will see what we can find in the Conference Room and… Woolsey's office; maybe even see if we can get up to the Jumper Bay."

"What good would that do," McKay yelped, his fear rising again at the thought of being left alone in the Control Room. As creepy as it was, he expected all of the ghosts of the city's former inhabitants to come leaping out of the walls the minute he was by himself. "Even if you could lower a Jumper into the Gate Room, we couldn't get it through the Gate, not with that wreckage sitting there, we—"

"McKay," Sheppard called his name, cutting off his fearful tirade.

"Right," he said and took in a huge breath. "Figure out what happened, we figure out how to get ourselves home."

"You got it," Sheppard said, and patted him reassuringly on the chest. "We're just down the hall if you need anything."

McKay nodded, and even before the bulk of Ronon moved past him, slapping him companionably on the back of his shoulder, he turned to the first of the computer consoles, and began to attach the memory buffer to his hand-held device. He couldn't help but wish he had his tablet with him. It was no more powerful, but he would have felt better, more effective, with a bigger instrument in his hands.

He couldn't help chuckle at himself a little bit, wondering if that was the computer geek's equivalent of jocks comparing the size of their… towels in the shower. The burgeoning laughter died in his throat, however, when the first of the Wraith characters began to scroll minutely across his screen.

"Oh no," he said aloud, his voice falling. Then without pausing for breath added, "This is so-not-good-SHEPPARD!"

Even as he called for his friend his eyes remained fixed on the data his mind translated quickly as it scrolled over the display of his hand-held computer, showing him the attempted decryption of the lockout codes on the self-destruct… the ten minute timer.

"Sheppard!" he called again, adding, "Ronon!"

His calling masked the slight scuff of a footfall on the stairs up from the Gate Room for just long enough for the shadow that fell across the computer desk in the next moment to be an almost life threatening shock.

"We're in trouble!" he called, the panic rising in his voice as he lifted his eyes from the shadow, to gaze in mounting horror at the face of the men facing him… if they could be called men.

He took them in slowly, from the Wraith stunner held in the outstretched hand, travelling over the leather bracer that encircled the wrist, laced and linking the pale, mottled flesh of the hand with the dark brown, homespun fabric of the shirt and tunic that covered his body. It took barely a second for McKay to bring his eyes to meet with the pale irises of the orbs in the veined and sickly-looking skin of the face that bore the twin sensory cavities on a high cheeked, Athosian seeming face.

"John!" McKay almost screamed, still trying to alert Sheppard and Ronon to the danger.

The hybrid tilted his head, as though amused, and then squeezed the trigger on the stunner.

As the crackling, painful heat of the energy blast took root in his chest McKay gasped, and moaned softly, "Why is it always me?"

The numbness spread quickly from his straining heart and lungs to pour lethargy into his limbs, and leaden his senses. The last thing he saw and heard as his legs folded beneath him was the growling, flying brown tiger – its tails whipping the air behind its massive head.

**

"We're in trouble!" McKay's high pitched cry from the Control Room tore the papers from Sheppard's hands. His own response seemed slow by comparison to Ronon's, and even as he heard Rodney call his first name – a sure sign that it wasn't just the scientist's oversensitive imagination – he watched as Ronon flew the length of the walkway between the office and the Control Room.

He snatched his sidearm from its holster and followed the big Satedan, taking aim at the first of the hybrid soldiers even as the creature pulled the trigger of the stunner he held, and dropped McKay where he stood.

By the time his reflexes had caught up to the horrified surprise that arrested his instinct to pull the trigger, Ronon's flying tackle had taken the hybrid down, and two others were mounting the step behind the first, trying to catch the Satedan warrior in their sights.

Overcoming his inaction, Sheppard shifted his aim, and fired, taking the next of the small group of hybrids, to fall like a toppled skittle, almost taking out those behind him.

The third of the hybrids abandoned his attempt to stun Ronon, instead he threw himself on the struggling bodies, adding to the confusion of limbs and growling ferocity that rolled at the top of the stairs. There was no way that Sheppard could help Ronon now without risk of hitting the man himself. Ronon would have to fend for himself.

As would he, Sheppard reminded himself, ducking aside as a blast from a stunner crackled against the doorframe beside his head. He shifted his aim again, firing off another two rounds to deter the hybrids from advancing any closer toward him. They were relentless. Even with at least one of his rounds taking the leading hybrid in the shoulder, the former human continued onward. It would be only a matter of seconds before they were on top of him.

**

Ronon was tiring, and the pain from the wound in his side was beginning to slow his movements. Growling savagely, as if the sound would push away such considerations, he sat up, throwing off the hybrid beating at his back, and swung his own fist wildly toward the one he pinned beneath him. His knuckles connected painfully with the hybrid's temple, and the creature stilled beneath him.

He knew he had to move quickly before the other attacker was on him again, or before the third, that he could see from the corner of his eyes, finished crossing the distance between the top of the steps, and where he still straddled the now immobile hybrid.

He heard the one behind him before he felt the impact against his back that sent him sprawling forward, but still he couldn't move quickly enough to avoid the attack. Instead he rolled with the momentum, using the push the hybrid had given him as he connected with his back, to come full turn over his own shoulder and come to one knee facing his attacker.

With a sudden burst of speed, belying the seriousness of the injury to his side, Ronon lashed out to catch the hybrid soldier by the throat, and heave him to the side, but even as he did he found himself face to face with the remaining attacker, and this one was in no way intimidated by the roar that Ronon threw at him, nor by the hand that lashed out to try and knock the Wraith stunner from his hand.

**

As he ducked under the reaching grasp of one of his hybrid attackers, driving his shoulder into the soldier's belly, Sheppard caught a glimpse of the trouble that beset his friend. Anger flushed through him and he used the strength of it to drive his opponent backwards until the hybrid's thighs connected with the back of the useless DHD console. Still he pushed, even as the hybrid beat against his shoulders and back and the two of them stumbled away from the console, and out onto the balcony, dangerously close to the railings.

As they came into view in the periphery of his vision, Sheppard grabbed at one of the hybrid's legs, at the same time trying to straighten; to lift the hybrid so that he could throw him over the top, even though he knew it would leave him vulnerable to attack from his remaining enemy. The hybrid struggled and kicked against him, grabbing the top of the railing. His knuckles were white as he was holding so tightly; was so desperate to avoid that fate.

The blow came to the back of his neck, spreading pain and rapidly growing numbness both down his body and upward into his head. His vision dimmed, which he decided was just as well, since the last thing he saw was a hybrid's knee heading directly for his face. He barely felt the impact of it. Instead he fell forward against the balcony rail as unconsciousness took a merciful hold of him.

**

"Sheppard!" Ronon called as he saw his friend fall and for a time he redoubled his efforts against the two hybrids that attempted to subdue him. He caught one of them a glancing blow that sent him reeling backwards, to tumble down the first few steps, and Ronon used the opening it gave him to try and get to his feet, meaning to go to his friend and help him.

He barely made it to one knee before the first of the blasts from the stunner hit him. His felt his muscles contract around the pain, as if to immobilise it; keep it from spreading weakness through his body and growling, continued to try and find his feet. The second and third wave of crackling energy hit him almost simultaneously, sending him staggering backwards to collide with the ruined bank of panels that had first taken his attention.

As he toppled forwards he thought he vaguely heard his shirt ripping, and thought, ironically, about the strip of leather he had seen trapped between the casing and the burned out circuit boards.

**

Sheppard moaned, and covered his face with his arm as he surfaced into consciousness and the light stabbed into his already aching head. He tasted blood in his mouth and tried hard to resist the gag reflex as it trickled down the back of his throat. Slowly he rolled to his side and concentrated hard on clearing his mouth of the unpleasant taste.

"When they told me who it was that they had found in the former Control Room, I did not believe them."

The voice was clipped, and Sheppard felt he should have known the speaker. He sounded strangely familiar and yet, at the same time did not remind him of any one person. He moved his arm away from his face and squinted until he could make out the figure in front of him, and blinked as he forced his eyes to focus more fully.

The man stood with his back to Sheppard in front of one of the huge windows that looked out into the watery depths that covered the city. The face that was reflected back at Sheppard held the same mix of the familiar and unfamiliar and he almost growled as he tried to catch a name that he was sure should have been on the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah, well," he said at last, "when you're as surprising as I obviously am, you get that a lot."

The man at the window turned, and nodded to unseen guards who appeared at Sheppard's side a moment later and hooked him by the arms to lift him to his feet. They held him until he was steady, and at another nod from the man with whom Sheppard was now, more or less, face to face, stepped back and assumed their positions as guards.

"Colonel Sheppard," the man greeted him. "I am certain that those who knew you would say that you do not change."

Sheppard looked him over before answering. He was a young man – Sheppard put him in his mid to late twenties – with light to mid-brown hair that was neatly groomed and relatively short compared to his obvious underlings. His skin was just on the coffee side of pale cream, and his jaw line held a strength that spoke of inherited resolve. The lips that moved when he spoke were neither miserly, nor too full, but underlined the resolve that Sheppard knew he saw in the youthful face; a face that hid an age of wisdom in the tightness of the jaw and the angles of the high cheeks and square temples.

The most striking – and also the most disturbing – thing about the man though was his eyes. While their pupils were the rounded shape of the humans of the Pegasus galaxy, the colour was the yellow-gold of the Wraith.

The young man spread his arms to either side of himself, a gesture that was, to Sheppard, uncomfortably familiar. Sheppard's belly turned a somersault inside of him, adding to the already sick feeling he had from the pounding in his head.

"Should I turn full circle for you, John?" the man asked. "You truly do not know who I am, do you?"

"Well, I—" Sheppard started, meaning to try and bluff a little longer until he could pull some kind of confirmation for his suspicions from the interactions between them.

"My name is Nethaiye—" he said.

"Oh crap!" Sheppard couldn't catch the exclamation before it slipped out.

"—and now that we know one another, I must decide what is to happen to you." Nethaiye finished.

"Well," Sheppard said taking a step closer and, trying to sound companionable, continued, "you could try letting us all go… for your mother's sake and all tha—"

Nethaiye's eyes flashed brightly in anger and he raised his voice as he snapped, "After what my _mother_ did to my father; her attempt to murder him, you would do well not to mention her in my presence if you wish to continue living!"

"Oh-kay," Sheppard almost sang, stepping back hurriedly. "You certainly inherited daddy's temper, that's for sure."

In that single demonstration of loss of control, Nethaiye had solidified all the fears in Sheppard's mind. Nethaiye, son of some kind of twisted union between Teyla and Michael – however it had been brought about, it was wrong – as an adult stood before him and was in control of Atlantis. How much worse could it get?

"What would you know of my father?" Nethaiye asked bitterly. "You never understood him. You never even tried."

"Look, kid," Sheppard began, spreading his hands in what he hoped was a placatory gesture.

"Don't _call_ me that!" Nethaiye's temper flared again.

"All right – all right – my bad," Sheppard said soothingly. "You said people that _knew_ me…"

"Ah, my dear Colonel, of course you do not know – how would you?" Nethaiye began by way of an answer. "You… Doctor McKay… and Ronon Dex…"

Sheppard swallowed, he had a terrible sinking feeling coming over him once more at the way in which a slow, sarcastic smile was spreading over the, clearly unstable, young man's face.

"I'm afraid that none of you survived the events that led to our liberation of the city of Atlantis, and the people of the Pegasus galaxy, from the cruelty of your kind," Nethaiye said.

"Dead?" Sheppard gasped.

"Yes."

"All of us?"

"Well," Nethaiye said and glanced at Ronon. Sheppard followed the direction of his gaze, watching for a moment as the big Satedan began to stir, finally shaking off the effects of the Wraith stunners. "It was never actually confirmed in his case, but… no one has seen or heard from him since."

"Doesn't mean I'm dead," Ronon mumbled, and Sheppard couldn't help but wonder just how much he'd heard.

"I'd hate to be the one to burst your bubble, Ronon, but I'm rather afraid that it likely does." Nethaiye said, tilting his head in a very wraithlike gesture that made Sheppard's blood run cold.

"All right, look," he said, trying to put on a braver face than he felt. "Enough with the gloating already, I never liked it in your dad, what makes you think I'm going to tolerate it in you?"

Nethaiye chuckled, "I do believe I rattled you, Colonel Sheppard."

"Not so much," Sheppard lied and then asked, "I would like to know what you're going to do with us though."

"That's rather out of my hands, John," Nethaiye answered almost apologetically. "I've already sent for my father. He'll be the one to decide."

"Great," Sheppard put on an exaggerated smile. "Family reunion… just what we need."

"At least this time you are here to witness it," Nethaiye said with an icy smile on his face.

Sheppard frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"By the time the city fell, you were long since dead and gone," Nethaiye said, shaking his head.

Sheppard staggered, spluttering incomprehensibly as Ronon managed to come to his knees beside him. He was too weak from blood loss and, Sheppard supposed, from the pain of his injury, to come to his feet. The news of his own premature passing though, continued to weaken his resolve, almost driving _him_ to his knees beside his friend.

"Wh—ho—" he stammered.

"Those you left behind you were fools," Nethaiye said, his eyes glazing a little in memory, "Even Te—even my mother underestimated father in the end…"

_"Teyla, come away from the edge," Kanaan said softly. He reached for her and drew her into his arms._

_She pushed at him savagely and yelled into the wind, "Let go of me!" He was forced to let go of her before she pitched both of them down after Michael. "How could you be so STUPI—?"_

_"Kanaan, Teyla, this is Lorne, come in please!" Major Lorne's voice sounding desperately in her ear cut off the tirade she had been about to launch at her former lover._

_"Go ahead, Major," she said, still yelling, but this time only because of the wind._

_"Get out of there!" Lorne cried, "A Wraith Hive and two Wraith cruisers just entered the upper atmosphere. There are hundreds of Darts currently—"_

_She began to hear the whine of a Dart, but it was too dark, and the gathering storm too fierce for her to see in which direction it came._

"The Dart had swept her up almost before she realised it was on top of her. We simply materialised our army into key areas of Atlantis. The city was already reeling from the former attack. My father's plan worked perfectly – just as he said it would. There were pockets of resistance… for a time… but nothing that ever amounted to much, even when my mother made her escape with some of them." Nethaiye said.

"I find it hard to believe that everyone in Atlantis simply rolled over and played dead," Ronon growled. "Not even for Michael."

_The walk from the transport ship that had landed on one of the outer landing pads had been a long one, and the distaste he felt at escorting the woman that had been his mother – holding her by the arm so she did not try to escape again – was beginning to sicken him. Yet for his father's sake he held his tongue and did as he was bidden._

_It would not be long before they reached the area, the Control Room, where the commander of the army had informed him they were holding the prisoners, and then the woman would see the truth of the matter. They could not stand against his father._

_He turned his head as they walked to regard his father's profile. His face was impassive, his eyes straight ahead. It was impossible to read on his face the thoughts that were in his mind, and while he felt the touch of his father's mind most keenly, he could not read those thoughts that dwelled there._

_They were on their knees, all of them – Lorne, Woolsey, Hollick, the Gate Technician – Banks, and even Doctor Keller – each had their own hybrid guard, each with a blaster aimed at the back of their necks._

_"So you see, Teyla, I am telling you the truth." his father said softly. "The rest is up to you."_

_"You son-of-a-bitch," Banks started, and struggled to get to her feet, beginning, even while still on her knees, to head Michael's way._

_"Amelia, n—" Teyla started, but the warning came too late. His father picked up a human side arm from the top of a nearby control desk, pulled back the slide, aimed and fired all in the space of a heartbeat. His arm was still outstretched when Teyla hid her face against it._

_"Michael, no more," she whispered…_

"So you're trying to tell me," Sheppard said sarcastically as the arrival of a figure in the doorway interrupted Nethaiye's tale, "that it was because of Teyla that the city fell. That she sold out?"

"That is your interpretation, Colonel Sheppard, not mine," Nethaiye answered and held out his hand toward the one waiting in the doorway.

"You sent for me," a familiar voice said softly.

"Jennifer?" Sheppard blinked, feeling at first relieved, and then profoundly disturbed when Nethaiye pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply. It was a demonstration of ownership, of possession as he publically ran his hands over some of the more intimate spaces of her body as they kissed, bending her backwards in his arms, before pulling back and steadying her until she caught her breath.

"One of our guests needs your help, Jennifer. He's hurt." Nethaiye said, and nodded toward Ronon.

"Of course," she said, and turned a smile that almost telegraphed her shame in Ronon and Sheppard's direction. "Have them bring him to the infirmary. I'll see to it there."

"I'll have them bring your medical kit," Nethaiye answered. "You'll see to it here."

"All right," Jennifer agreed, and moved toward Ronon to begin a gentle examination of the wound.

"In the meantime, Colonel," Nethaiye said, "Much as I'd like to stay and entertain you; catch you up with city-wide news, there are things I must attend to."

He nodded to the hybrid guards, and without a word passing between them the guards came forwards. One of them took Sheppard's arm and began to lead him from the room. Two others grabbed the still unconscious McKay, and began to drag him along after them.

**

"Here," Sheppard crouched down beside McKay and held the flask of water out to him. "It isn't much, but it'll wash the sour taste out of your mouth."

"Where are we?" McKay asked.

"What, you don't recognise Atlantis' brig from the inside?" Sheppard said, only half way kidding. He sighed and looked around at the slatted bars, the glowing force field. "Don't suppose you… got something up your sleeve you can use to get us out of here?"

"Of course I do," McKay said, handing back the flask and exaggeratedly patting the sleeves of his jacket. "No wait… crap, I left it in my other coat."

Sheppard gave him a sour smile. "Very funny," he said.

"Where's Ronon?" McKay asked, frowning as he looked around.

"Nethaiye has Keller fixing him up," Sheppard said.

"Nethaiye?" McKay blinked. "Teyla's Nethaiye?"

"It's more like, 'Michael's Nethaiye' but… yeah," Sheppard answered.

"Wait a minute, _our_ Keller?" McKay started to get to his feet, accepting Sheppard's hand when he offered it.

"What is this," Sheppard said, "Twenty questions?"

"No just… what's going on?"

"Long story short: Michael took over the city, Nethaiye's in charge, we're dead. Now you know as much as I do." Sheppard reeled off, his words clipped.

"We're—?"

"Would you _stop_ repeating everything I say as a question!"

"But I don't—" McKay started, but Sheppard held up a hand suddenly, cutting him off, as he heard footsteps approaching, and the unmistakable sound of growling as Ronon appeared, being manhandled.

Both Sheppard and McKay moved closer to the middle of the cell as the force field deactivated and the door slid aside.

The four hybrids struggling with Ronon all but threw him into the cell, keeping weapons trained on him all the time as the door closed behind them. Even when the door was closed they jumped back as Ronon rushed the bars and all but roared at them. He didn't even seem to care when the force field reactivated almost around him.

"Take it easy, Chewie," Sheppard said, putting a hand onto Ronon's arm. He didn't cease his display until the hybrid guards were well out of sight.

"She's like a little… lap dog or something!" Ronon growled and stalked away, pacing.

"There are a lot of things about this place that are screwed up," Sheppard said. "You manage to find out anything else about what happened here?"

Ronon shook his head. "We didn't really get the chance to talk. He had a hybrid standing over us the whole time."

Sheppard sighed. "One thing's for sure – we need to get the hell out of here before Michael arrives, or we are _seriously _screwed!"

"Would someone _please_ tell me what the hell's going on?" McKay cut in, making chopping motions with his hand in the space between Sheppard and Ronon.

"I already told you," Sheppard said.

"You gave me the crib notes," McKay protested.

"When we came through the Gate we got thrown into some kind of… parallel universe, it looks like," Ronon said.

"Thank you, genius," McKay snapped, "I managed to work that out all by myself. And here Michael took over Atlantis; seems like Teyla's boy is all grown up, and he said we're all dead."

"Seems like you know pretty much everything to me," Ronon shrugged. "Unless you count the fact that Jennifer's in some kind of twisted relationship with—"

"She's what!" McKay yelped.

"Would you two stop… fixating on that," Sheppard said, peering out of the cell and into the hallway, "and start trying to figure out a way to get out of here, and back to our own reality _before_ the big bad wolf gets here?"

"There _isn't_ a way out of here," McKay snapped. "These cells can hold Wraith and all manner of other things safely without any chance of escape. The Ancients designed them that way."

"Well I, for one, don't still want to be here when Michael arrives?" Sheppard countered.

"Well, I don't either," McKay said, "but short of one of his hybrids coming to let us out, I don't see any way around it."

**

Jennifer Keller hadn't felt such doubts in a long time… almost three years, as a matter of fact – ever since Michael's army had taken the city and all hope had flown with the realisation that with Sheppard gone, McKay dead and Ronon missing – for she refused to acknowledge that he too was dead – there was little hope for them ever getting it back. So, when Lorne, Teyla and the few other marines and Athosians that remained had made their desperate fight, and then flight for freedom, she had stayed behind.

At first it was fear that had driven the decision, and later her compassion and her adherence to the oaths she'd taken as a doctor had convinced her that it had been the right decision.

Michael's hybrids were tough, there was no denying that, but in the escalating battle with the Wraith, and certainly after the appearance of the Wraith Alliance, injuries had been many, and severe. Just because they were hybrids and in Michael's army didn't mean they deserved less than the best medical care, so she applied herself to giving that and thereby brought her attention to the one left in charge of the city as Michael continued to expand his empire: Nethaiye.

It had seemed… strange at first, almost a little creepy to realise that the man – she could not afford to think of him as anything else – that had taken her as his plaything should, in truth, only have been a babe in arms. Then it became obvious that he was not, in fact, the child that Teyla had carried at all, but a clone of that child, whose development had been accelerated so that he now stood among them as a man.

On the nights when darkness gripped her in its maw one of the questions that always assaulted her was what had Michael done with the real Nethaiye?

She'd seen what he was capable of, and it terrified her to think of it. She had seen him act with ruthless determination; with a cold, clinical detachment to the consideration of life, or to the pain his actions were causing. Under his orders, she had been forced to participate in experiments and treatments the nature of which were vicious and brutal, and expected to display the same clinical detachment in order to complete her work. She could not – not ever – it was against her nature, and while, behind his back, she tried to mitigate the pain and suffering, often taking the long route to reach a solution to the problems his experiments sought to conquer, she would never dare try to do so to his face; in his presence. Michael terrified her.

Nethaiye, on the other hand – so long as he was not in one of his periodic rages – was gentle enough with her, and treated her well. The rages, she had come to realise, were a product of his creation; of some imbalance in his neurochemistry. They did not last, and she usually found ways to avoid his company when they were upon him. In the three years she had lived among the 'enemy' she had learned well the best way to survive, but now everything had been turned on its head.

It had taken a single look into Ronon's eyes to remind her of everything they'd had – everything they'd shared – and everything they'd lost with Michael's coming. It had brought back the hurried goodbye, the ache of loss, and the fear and anger at being left behind to serve under the tyranny of a monster while she waited in vain for his return; for freedom. It had made a lie of her surrender – her acquiescence to contentment in Nethaiye's bed, and even though he was not _her_ Ronon, and they were not _her _McKay and Sheppard, she knew she had to do what she could to save them.

She slowed her pacing as she heard Nethaiye's footsteps coming closer to the lab. She could do this. She knew him well enough to say the right things, to bend him, even just a little, to her wishes; to plant the seed inside him that would cause him to consider his actions carefully where they were concerned.

"You wanted to see me, Jennifer?" His voice was soft, wistful.

She put a smile on her face and turned to face him, "Nethaiye, yes."

She crossed the room and fit herself into his arms, and couldn't help but melt into the kiss he gave to her, deep and powerful as it was. He knew _her_ intimately – knew those things that brought her the most pleasure, and so caused her to give in equal measure. She took a breath as the kiss ended; using the air to strengthen the weakness in her knees and to banish the trembling need he kindled inside of her. She could not allow herself to be distracted.

"I've been thinking…" she said.

"Haven't I told you that's dangerous?" he teased, running his fingers over the curve of her breast.

She chuckled. "On several occasions, but hear me out, hmm?"

"Always for you, Jennifer," he said, and crossed the room to the window, to use the back of his raised hand to move the blinds aside so that he could stare out into the murky blue of the ocean beyond the shield.

She turned to face him and took another breath to bolster her courage before she said, "Sheppard and the others—"

"Do not concern yourself with them," he interrupted.

"No, please," she said, moving a few steps closer. "Hear me out."

"When have I ever done otherwise," he asked, without turning away from the window.

"They could be an asset, Nethaiye," she said.

"They already oppose us," he answered.

"Did you give them a chance to do otherwise?" she asked, "From what I understand you sent in the hybrids, stunners blazing, didn't even try to approach them peacefully… talk to them."

"They consider this _their_ city, Jennifer; my father and our people the usurpers," Nethaiye said. She thought he sounded a little subdued.

"But they need not," she said. "If you could… demonstrate the strides we've made against the Wraith; show them the peaceful settlements that we protect… I'm sure that Sheppard would see the value in that, he isn't stupid and he knows that change sometimes comes with a period of unrest."

"And what of the others? What of McKay and Ronon?"

"I'll admit that Ronon will be harder to convince, but… in time, I'm sure they'd come around and with Sheppard's influence," she moved a few more steps closer and started to reach for him, "It wouldn't even be that hard."

"You really think so?"

"Yes. They're an asset, Nethaiye," she stressed, "but not if Michael gets his hands on them. You _know_ what he'll do to them."

"And what might _that_ be, Doctor Keller?"

Jennifer flinched, and closed her eyes. Every muscle tensed and her blood thickened and froze in her veins as Michael's voice sounded from the doorway. She tried to shrink inside of herself as his footsteps came closer, ceasing just behind her.

"Michael, I—" she stammered.

"Turn around," he said in a measured voice. She turned slowly, visibly trembling. "Answer me."

_-answer me- -answer- -answer-_

"Just… that… you… don't…" she said, fighting to keep every word inside.

"Father," Nethaiye said softly, and after a moment she felt the agonising vice inside her mind slacken as he let go and Nethaiye said a soft, "Thank you."

She knew, however, that it would not be the last of it. In the next instant the back of Michael's left hand caught her a powerful blow to the side of her face that sent her sprawling to the floor.

"Where are they?" he demanded of Nethaiye a moment later, leaving her to crawl away into the obscurity of the shadows in the corner of the lab.

**

The two hybrid soldiers pushed him into the small room and Sheppard did not miss the irony of the place in which Michael had elected to meet with him. It was here, after he had helped them to defeat the Hive, that they placed him under guard until they decided to give him the retrovirus again.

Sheppard stopped just inside the glass door.

The Wraith-Human hybrid stood at the window, looking out. His back was to the door, and to Sheppard, but he could clearly see Michael's face reflected in the mirror the blue-dark glass had become in the underwater environment. He couldn't help but compare what he saw with the last time he saw _their_ Michael, when they'd fought – essentially over Teyla.

He looked strong, healthy. His reflection held none of the telltale signs of fatigue he had seen in the Michael back home – not that the fatigue had slowed him at all, Sheppard recalled, but still…

"Hello, Michael."

Michael took a breath, and then spoke. "I've given a great deal of consideration to the course of action I mean to take regarding you and your friends, Colonel Sheppard."

"This is the part where you're going to tell me that you're going to help us find a way back to our reality, right?" Sheppard said, a little uneasy at the tone in Michael's voice. It was clipped, expressionless – not at all what he expected.

"I can't do that, Colonel," Michael said.

"Sure you can. You just… give us a Jumper and send us on our way," Sheppard said.

"I can't do that, because I cannot risk that you might never find a way to repeat the accident that happened with the portal in your reality in this one and reverse your journey. I cannot allow you to jeopardise all that I have worked for by interfering in the affairs of this reality as you did in your own." He took another deep breath. "So I am left with a choice – you… are left with a choice."

Sheppard couldn't help but shiver as Michael turned slowly to face him. The gold of his eyes skewered him to the spot, and even without saying the words out aloud, Sheppard understood the choice that Michael laid before him.


	2. Act 2

**Act 2**

Involuntarily, Sheppard took a half step back as Michael turned fully and tilted his head, waiting for his answer.

"You know… Michael," Sheppard used the name they had given to the former Wraith in a deliberate attempt to regain his own equilibrium and unbalance his adversary, "of all the things I ever took you for, stupid was never one of them."

"What is it you once said to me, Colonel? Sticks… and stones…?"

Sheppard shivered, but did his best to avoid the obvious similarities to an encounter he'd had with Michael in his own universe not much more than two months ago. He pressed on with the conversation.

"You have to know that there's no way _any_ of us are going to join your little… rebellion, not now, and not in either reality," he said.

"And _you_ must know that it is the only possibility left to you that ensures your continued survival," Michael countered. "You also are not stupid, Colonel Sheppard."

Sheppard shook his head, "I'm not that stupid, no, which is why I know that it's no possibility at all. Even if I did agree to work with you; to join you, there's no _way_ you'd ever trust me… or McKay, and you _know_ that Ronon would never countenance working together, not even to ensure the destruction of the Wraith. The answer's 'no,' Michael, no matter how you look at it."

Michael sighed softly, and began to turn away. "Then you will join your name-sake from this reality."

"Some choice," Sheppard said sarcastically.

The Wraith-Human hybrid swung back to face him so quickly that Sheppard almost tripped and fell backwards through the glass door of the room in his attempt to put a greater distance between the two of them.

"I thought I made it clear that it was the _only_ choice!" Michael snapped, raising his voice slightly.

"I guess it's a choice I can live with," Sheppard said, squaring his shoulders and refusing to be cowed, now that the startled feeling had faded. "I'd imagine it was quite some send-off."

"You flatter yourself," Michael said, jeering softly. "It was as ignominious a death as you deserved."

"You _would_ say that," Sheppard said. A sinking feeling was beginning to assault him even as his curiosity peaked.

Michael tilted his head again, the irritation that appeared to have been growing in him only the moment before, subtly derailed by Sheppard's challenge.

"I merely speak the truth," he said, his voice clipped. "In your futile attempts to neutralise the threat my army had become to the continued supremacy of the Atlanteans, and your growing desperation to regain Teyla's good graces, you allowed yourself and your team to be lured by the Wraith Alliance as bait in a trap in which they tried to corner me."

Sheppard's sinking feeling grew as Michael described exactly what had happened in the attempt he had made to form an alliance with Todd, only to have been betrayed by the Wraith Queen on whose authority Todd was acting.

"I could not allow my army to be compromised, but neither could I risk allowing Teyla to fall into the hands of the Alliance. As I journeyed to her aid, you and I…met."

**

_For many long moments Michael stood in the shadow of the rock face, watching as his adversary packed away the medical equipment he had used on the injured marine. It would have been so easy to stun, even to kill all of them where they had crouched, pinned by the Wraith – who had both proposed, and betrayed an alliance._

_He felt a moment of indecision. He could let the colonel leave, and Sheppard would be none the wiser as to the closeness he had come to a confrontation, or he could, as his senses screamed at him to do, step out of the shadows, into the path of the departing Human, and challenge him._

_He chose the latter course._

_To credit Sheppard's reactions, when faced with the blaster that Michael pointed at his head, the colonel also raised his own weapon._

_"Colonel Sheppard," Michael said, greeting him with soft menace._

_"Michael," Sheppard said sourly, and added with sarcastic cheer, "I must say, you're looking… well."_

_"And you look somewhat cornered, Colonel."_

_"Hmm," Sheppard answered and he shrugged a little before continuing, "Not so much. After a minute or two, Ronon will wonder where the hell I've gotten to, send someone back – maybe even come back himself."_

_"If I let you live that long," Michael agreed, but made the soft threat anyway and realised in the moment he spoke the words that he did not intend to allow the colonel to so easily walk away from this encounter._

_"Nah," Sheppard shook his head just slightly, "You were gonna kill me, you'd have done it already."_

_"You presume too much!" Irritated by the Human's overconfidence, Michael took several menacing steps toward Sheppard, who backed up. Suddenly wanting rid of the Human, Michael told him, "Your presence here is unnecessary; unwelcome."_

_"I could say the same about you," Sheppard said, and Michael watched as his muscles tensed. The Human's ingratitude further rankled him._

_"It would be a lie," Michael snapped, "Were it not for the arrival of my cruisers, the Hive would have vaporised your ship."_

_Sheppard shivered and asked unexpectedly, "Why?" _

_"My reasons are my own," Michael growled at him, before calming in the space of a heartbeat and tilting his head, he added, "Besides, I could not allow you to join the Wraith Alliance against me."_

_"I don't buy it," Sheppard took another step back. It put some distance between them. "You would maybe send your minions for that, but to come yourself?"_

_"I told you, my agenda is my ow—"_

_"And you gave us the lead on the Haradians… It seems to me like you have some kind of grudge against this particular Hive." Sheppard said with determination in his voice._

_Michael's anger gathered strength. Even trying to control his rising temper against the Human, he could not maintain full control. Bitterly he began, "My busine—"_

_"And what did you do with Teyla's baby?" Sheppard took a step forward this time and tightened his grip on his weapon, shifting his aim until he pointed it at Michael. _

_"He is safe, which is more than can be said for his mother!" Michael growled._

_"I swear," Sheppard raised his voice to smother Michael's continued rumbling, "if you so much as try and harm one hair on her head, I'll—"_

_"Me?" Michael snarled, deeply offended at the suggestion. "She is in far greater danger from you! You do not deserve to have her at your side! You have used her… abused her, just as you did me!"_

_Sheppard frowned. "How the—" he started, but his question was abruptly interrupted._

_The shot from the blaster exploded against the rock wall beside them, showering both Michael and Sheppard with shards of flint. It broke the equilibrium between them. Michael turned and automatically fired back in the direction from which the shot had originated, momentarily ignoring Sheppard as the second shot slammed into the rock beside him. More splinters of flint, like tiny daggers flew at both of them, a deadly reminder of the Wraith enemies that did not seem to care which side they vanquished. Sheppard turned and he, too, fired at the group that seemed to have appeared from nowhere._

_Abruptly, Michael broke for cover and Sheppard followed, firing every step of the way, as was Michael. When they reached the safety of cover, side by side, they fought in a sudden pact of necessity._

_"And so again, you would use me to your own ends," Michael snapped, pausing in his assault against the Wraith warriors to thrust the accusation against Sheppard like a knife._

_Sheppard did not answer the accusation, instead he demanded, "What the hell did you do to her!"_

_The blast from a Wraith weapon exploded close by Sheppard's head and he half rolled around the rock behind which he was sheltering to return fire._

_Michael snarled at him. How dare Sheppard suggest he had or would do __**anything**__ to harm Teyla? His anger and agitation shifted the focus of his aim and he turned to fire in Sheppard's direction. His shot flew wide, but still Sheppard flattened himself against the rocks._

_"Atlantis was supposed to be a place of safety," Michael growled. Even as he spoke the words he knew his own folly in the assumption. She wasn't safe there. She would never be safe anywhere but at his side. He should have kept her with him; sheltered her with him among his creatures until it was safe to leave… until he could have gathered his forces against his former Wraith brothers._

_"Maybe if whatever you did to her hadn't messed with her head," Sheppard spat, and broke off from returning fire to the Wraith, to aim a shot Michael's way._

_"Her condition warrants torment? Abuse?" Michael snorted and, following a fierce barrage of fire from the Wraith, rolled into the open, coming to one knee to release a torrent of deadly fire their way. Several Wraith fell under his angry onslaught, before he launched himself to his feet again and sprinted for new cover. "And to think, you consider yourselves better than me… you are creatures… no better than animals!"_

_"Sticks and stones!" Sheppard yelled back, though in the tone of his voice, Michael sensed that the accusation against Sheppard had hurt the colonel deeply. The thought should have been a comfort to Michael, instead Sheppard's reaction confirmed the suspicion Michael had harboured all along, that Sheppard had feelings for Teyla; that he was a rival, and as such, the competition between them, the antagonism, and the only course of action left to Michael solidified inside of him. _

_One way or another, only one of them would walk away from this._

Michael paused in telling Sheppard of what had happened. Scarcely two years had passed, yet it seemed no time at all.

He studied the colonel's face carefully; saw the discomfort written there and realised that _this_ Sheppard had lived through the experience. He knew from the way Sheppard anticipated what he was going to say.

His stomach tightened a little in transferred worry bordering on fear. Perhaps in Sheppard's universe the colonel had been victorious against _his_ Michael. He did not dwell on the thought, only took a calming breath and continued his retelling.

_The battle had taken him down into a small gulley behind the rocks in order to avoid the Wraith gunfire, only to find himself face to face with a small group of Wraith. One of them lashed out, catching his wrist a stunning blow, and the blaster he held went flying to clatter against the rock wall. Undeterred, knowing that Sheppard would soon follow and he would be in greater peril still, Michael engaged the three Wraith warriors hand to hand. Barely a moment later he heard the Human as he dove into the gulley and rolled to his feet. Expecting Sheppard to join the fight against him, Michael tried to angle himself so that his Wraith attackers were between himself and the colonel._

_Michael's hands were a blur as he tried to hold back the attacking Wraith; tried to find a way through their defences to rid himself of the irritation they were, like fleas on a dog, so that he could concentrate on relieving himself of the threat that Sheppard was to his place in Teyla's considerations._

_"Michael!" _

_Sheppard called to him and Michael could not help but glance his way. He was in time to see one of the knives the Human wore at his belt flying toward him, not in attack, but so that he would have a weapon to use against the Wraith. He could not help but chuckle inwardly as he suspected Sheppard's motives were anything but altruistic. The Human warrior no doubt wanted to be rid of him, for Teyla's sake and wanted to be the one to see it done. He caught the knife effortlessly, and immediately turned against the Wraith warriors._

_In the space of barely a breath he lashed out and one of the Wraith fell away from the fight, clutching at his throat, before toppling backwards, his lifeblood pooling to stain the rocky ground beneath him. As Michael continued his hand-to-hand fight, the splintering of rocks around him began again, signalling that other Wraith had found their way to them once more, and were likely intent on reducing both he and Sheppard to smoking ruins of their former selves. _

_Sheppard threw himself against the support of one of the rocky mounds and began to return fire._

_As Sheppard held forth against the Wraith gunfire, Michael continued his assault against those with whom he fought at close quarters. Spinning to avoid a wild strike by one of the two remaining warriors, he lashed out with his foot, driving the Wraith back against the nearby rock face. Without mercy he followed, knife leading, and drove the tip of the blade deep into the staggering Wraith's chest. With a growl he pulled the knife free and turned on the one remaining opponent that stood between him and the course he must then take, as the dead Wraith toppled at his feet._

_Michael leaped toward the remaining Wraith over the fallen. The familiar touch of a reaching, confused consciousness brushed his mind. The plaintive nature of the touch, a cry for help, for solace and comfort, stole his breath and he gasped, softly – though he resisted engaging with the answering touch of his mind._

_"Teyla…" he breathed and stumbled as he landed._

_Sheppard turned from the gunfire even as Michael recovered from his momentary lapse. Refusing to display weakness before the Human, with an effort denying any further contact from Teyla's mind, he recovered his footing and lashed out toward the final Wraith. Caught off guard, perhaps believing that the clumsy landing had injured Michael, the Wraith was vulnerable. Mercilessly, Michael stepped forward and drove the point of the knife upwards, into the soft, fleshy underside of his chin, and into his brain. The Wraith fell away – dead before he even hit the ground._

_"Stay where you are!"_

_Sheppard's order was cold – angry. Michael disobeyed and turned back to face him and Sheppard was already covering him with his weapon._

_Unbelievably angry, Michael spread his arms to either side of him, and in spite of that anger, laughed in Sheppard's face. Sheppard took a step back, as though the action unnerved him._

_"Go ahead," Michael invited. "What are you waiting for? The Wraith are withdrawing. They're not interested in us any more. They know whe—"_

_"You, you sorry son-of-a-bitch," Sheppard growled, "on your knees!"_

_"What purpose would it serve?" Michael's tone was mocking of Sheppard's desire to take him 'execution style' and taunting him, far from getting on his knees, he began to walk toward Sheppard, his hands still open, arms still spread to the side, he said, "It won't change the fact that you have lost her… pushed her away." Michael tilted his head to the side as he neared Sheppard, "How does it feel, Colonel Sheppard, to know that it's me she calls for in the dead of night; me she reaches for when she's in need, and this time—"_

_"I know what you're doing," Sheppard snarled, tightening his grip on his weapon, "and it's not going to work!"_

_"—none of it is my fault." Michael finished none the less. "Listen to yourself. You know I'm right."_

_"Whatever you did to her; whatever mind control you have on her—"_

_"If you believe that, then kill me now!" Michael demanded, suddenly, and momentarily, allowing himself to display his anger. _

_From away in the distance Michael heard the whine of a dart, and acknowledging the potential for danger, he reached out toward the pilot, trying to divert its course. He could not allow the Wraith to take Sheppard down. This __**would**__ end, here and now, but he would be the one to end it. He wouldn't fail Teyla, not again._

_"Tell me what you did to her," Sheppard demanded, and then continued in the next breath, "Where is Teyla's son! Tell me!"_

_"I don't think so," Michael answered._

_As the Dart flew past at low altitude, barely skimming the top of the rocks, firing its weapons as it came, Michael leaped forward, and wrapping his arms around the Human, he threw the both of them aside. As they scuffed against the rocky ground, Sheppard rolled aside, scarcely making it behind the shelter of the rocks, and rolled to bring his weapon to bear against the attacking Dart. In doing so he presented his back to Michael._

_Before Sheppard could move again, Michael brought himself to his feet. He charged forward, and used the weight of his body to pin Sheppard to the rock; to send the P90 clattering to the ground._

_"Face me!" he hissed, grabbing a handful of Sheppard's hair to pull him away from the rocks now that the threat of Sheppard's weapon, and the Dart, was gone. "Finish this!"_

_As he released Sheppard to allow the man to do as he had demanded, Michael dropped into a crouch, knife ready as he saw the colonel reach for the second blade that he carried._

_"Oh, you got it bad, don't you?" Sheppard taunted, as he shifted his knife from hand to hand. "How far back does it go… Mikey… from the beginning… when you tried to feed on her?"_

_Michael growled, struggling with the fury that was rising in him. He could not allow Sheppard's words to manipulate him; make him lose control, but with the next riposte, nothing he could do would soothe the blinding wash of it that swept over him._

_  
"Did you think she felt the same?" Sheppard sneered._

_Michael's growl became a snarl and with no moment of pause he leaped at Sheppard. The Human leaped at the same moment, the two of them still in the air when they clashed, their blades raking at each other, each drawing blood, but neither truly harming the other._

_However, the sting of the gash against his thigh served to pull the wild fury into a cold, hard focus as Michael landed. As his feet touched the ground, he pulled his empty hand in an arc around toward his own shoulder, driving his forearm against Sheppard's throat, forcing the man's head back. Sheppard let out a choked grunt and stumbled backwards, gasping for breath. Beneath his own raised arm, Michael punched forward with the knife tip leading, but Sheppard still held the presence of mind to block the strike with the flat of his empty hand against Michael's wrist._

_Undeterred, not expecting the battle to be an easy one, Michael used Sheppard's push against his wrist to add to his momentum as he turned and aimed a savage, spinning kick at the Human's gut._

_Sheppard twisted and caught the blow against his hip, and at the same time grasped Michael's booted foot, twisting until he upset his equilibrium, and could heave him to the floor. Michael rolled as he hit the ground, putting a greater distance between himself and Sheppard, before he rolled back to his shoulders and bunched his muscles to flip himself back to his feet._

_Already Sheppard was coming at him, punching out with both his empty fist and the hand that held the knife. As fast as ever he'd moved, Michael blocked the empty fist with the flat of his hand, and the knife strike with his leather-clad forearm. He turned the knife in his hand as he blocked, so that its tip raked against the vulnerable underside of Sheppard's arm, and hissing in pain, the man fell back._

_Michael gave him no quarter._

_He followed, lashing out against the injured wrist not once, but twice, and again until Sheppard's knife flew from his hand. Still Michael advanced, striking again at Sheppard, the blade of his own knife turned away from the man so that the hilt of the knife, gripped in his hand, beat against the man's chest, driving him backward, as the roundhouse punches he aimed at Sheppard's jaw left the man reeling._

_Sheppard's increasingly desperate punches landed painfully against Michael's body and his face. He welcomed the pain of them, turned the pain inward as a reminder of all that this Human had done to him; to his Teyla…_

_Letting out a low and dangerous snarling growl at the thought, he delivered a powerful uppercut to Sheppard's chin, forcing the man's head backward. As Sheppard's knees buckled, he stepped forward, within the struggling man's reach, and caught him to lower him almost gently to the ground. The Human was defeated – his for the taking – but it was not enough for him to be victorious. _

_As he came to one knee beside his defeated Human rival, he wound his hand into the man's hair and dragged his head around until their eyes met._

_"I do not need to __**think**__ that she feels the same, John Sheppard," he all but whispered. "I feel her even now… reaching for me… searching for me… her desperation for me is…"_

_As their eyes met, he pushed mercilessly against Sheppard's mind, at the same time opening himself to the desperate, needful longing he felt from Teyla, allowing the man to see it; to feel it for himself._

_"Oh God," Sheppard gasped softly as Michael allowed the enormity of it; of everything, to flood into him._

_"I do not demand worship—"_

_-worship- -worship- -worship-_

_"—only that you die," Michael said, tilting his head, but never once releasing Sheppard from the grasp of his mind._

_"Michael… don't…" Sheppard pleaded, but broke off, crying out in pain as Michael pushed the sharp blade under the bottom of the protective vest and deep into his lower chest._

_"You always knew it would come, one day, to this," Michael told him, calmly curious at the sensations he could feel flowing from Sheppard in among the sharpness of the man's pain. There was a rush of panic, a deep wash of emotion that filled the man's eyes with tears and drew a painful sob from his wounded chest and speckled his lips with drops of blood._

_"Not… like… this…" Sheppard forced the words past his trembling lips. Michael watched his face contorting in pain as he felt the trembling begin. He knew he should end it; end his pain, but he was curious to understand how Sheppard saw it would end. As he watched, he saw Sheppard's eyes beginning to dim and knew that he would never know. The man was trying to say something, and he could not help but lean closer to hear. "Tell her… tell her I…I lo— loved h—"_

_Michael tilted his head, considering the request. Finally, he said, "As you wish," and for the sake of that sentiment, shifted his hand that held the knife, turning the blade and pushing until the tip of the knife found Sheppard's already straining heart._

_"You… mother-fu—"_

_The insult died on Sheppard's last breath._

**

Sheppard swallowed hard to try and find his voice, to appear unaffected by the retelling.

"Funny," he said, clearing his throat against the knot that had lodged there. "That's not the way I remember that going at all."

"Spare me your obfuscation, Colonel Sheppard," Michael said, once more cold, where his retelling had held a note almost of regret. His voice was harsh, expressionless as he continued. "It changes nothing – the choice remains."

"My answer is still—"

"Perhaps," Michael said, beginning to walk toward him. Sheppard couldn't help but back away, turning slightly to put his back to the wall as he realised that Michael was heading for the door. Michael's hybrid guards opened the door for their master and he paused, looking back over his shoulder to finish, "if you were to see the universe in which you find yourself, it would allow you to make a more… informed choice. Bring him to my ship. We leave within the hour."

As Michael barked his orders to his hybrids, Sheppard leaned heavily against the solidity of the wall behind him, breathing hard as he ceased to hold back the genuine worry and fear at what he'd heard. He'd been in a world of trouble before, but never like this. Never in the hands of one like Michael – _this_ Michael, who maybe had the edge over his own – with a choice he could not make.

"Crap!" he sighed vehemently as the hybrids came into the room to take him roughly by the arms and pull him from the room. He knew that, short of a miracle or some kind of divine intervention, he and his friends were as good as dead.

**

"How long has he been gone? Where do you think they've taken him?" McKay rattled off the questions at his usual breakneck pace, "He should be back by now. Shouldn't he be back by now?"

"Shut up, McKay," Ronon growled, his irritation not because of the nervous prattle, but because he thought he'd heard something, and with all the jabbering coming from McKay's mouth, he couldn't hear what was going on beyond the hum of the force field.

"No, you shut up," McKay snapped, "it's not like you've not been pacing for… for however long it's been."

Ronon swung around and held up a hand menacingly as he said, "Shhh! I think I hear something."

McKay sidled closer, his worried look quickly replaced by one of panic.

"Michael's people?" he hissed.

"Well, if you ever shut up, I—" Ronon began to answer, but was cut off as the hybrid left as the lone guard was enveloped in the blue crackle of energy from a stunner, and a moment later crumpled to the floor.

Ronon raised an eyebrow and exchanged glances with McKay, and then glanced back to watch as the figure moved cautiously into the space left by the unconscious guard. The figure was not alone, a second newcomer sidled past him, flat against the wall, stunner at the ready until he cleared the corner, and then he stopped and peered into the holding cell – the expression on his familiar face one of astonishment.

Ronon echoed the expression on his _own_ face. To see the man looking so hale and healthy – so normal – was more than a welcome surprise.

"Lorne," he said softly in greeting.

"Ronon," he said and smiled at last. "My God, are you a sight for sore eyes, and McKay too."

Lorne shook his head, his astonishment returning. Ronon smiled, just a little. He could understand how seeing them again whilst knowing that in this universe they were dead, must be as unsettling for Lorne as the knowledge of their death was for him.

"I'm guessing you're not exactly on their side," Ronon suggested, gesturing toward the fallen hybrid.

Lorne grinned, "Here for a little prison break," he confirmed, and glanced back toward his partner. "We'll have you out of here in a second or two."

"What are you doing here? How the hell did you _get_ here?" McKay asked, barely pausing for breath between the two questions.

"It isn't easy, I can tell you," Lorne said, and then stepped back as his companion finally patched in to the controls for the cell, and lowered the force field and began to open the door. "And it's not something we do very often. Too great a risk, but…"

Ronon slipped through the door as soon as there was space, then reached back inside to grab McKay by the shoulder of the jacket as the scientist dithered.

"What about Sheppard," McKay said, tugging his jacket from Ronon's hand. "We can't just leave him."

"We can't risk waiting," Lorne said apologetically. "Like I said, we don't come back often, it's risky and it's difficult."

"We can't leave him behind," Ronon said gruffly.

"You want to get out of the city alive, you're going to have to," Lorne said sharply. "The ship that arrived in the city a while back is getting ready to leave. We have to be ready too, it's the only way."

He stepped away from the cell door as it closed and the force field activated again. He reached into a pack, and handed weapons to Ronon and McKay before nodding to the cell.

"Some things can be explained away as glitches," Lorne said seriously, "especially with the city as damaged as it is, and submerged. Other things though, they monitor more carefully… and traffic in and out of the shield is one of those things. We'll just have to find another way to reach your Sheppard, we can't risk exposing ourselves."

Ronon frowned, and ran everything he knew through his head, trying to make sense of it all, trying to decide his best course of action – whether to insist, or to go along with Lorne and trust the major would have some to ensure that they _could_ reach Sheppard if they left.

"The ship that came in…" McKay said to Lorne, "it was probably Michael."

"If that's true then he'll keep Sheppard with him," Lorne answered.

Ronon frowned, "What do you mean? Why?"

"Look," Lorne snapped, and started to turn to walk away. "We don't have _time_ for a Q and A right now."

Ronon grabbed his shoulder, refusing to let him go. "What aren't you telling us, Lorne?"

Lorne turned back with a sigh and shifted uncomfortably as though he didn't really want to be the one to give them the news. Finally he said, "Sheppard – our Sheppard – didn't live to see the city fall to Michael's people. He died long before that. Michael was the one that killed him."

"What!" McKay paled. "And you expect us to leave him here with that—"

"Teyla always said she felt regret," Lorne said.

"From Michael?" Ronon spat incredulously.

"Look," Lorne pulled himself from Ronon's grasp. "I didn't risk exposing my cell, coming in here to get you out to have all this crap laid at my door. The truth of it is, Ronon, if Michael takes Sheppard out of here, it'll be a hell of a lot easier for us to pick him up later."

"And what if he tries again?" McKay asked, mild panic still evident in his voice, "to kill Sheppard, I mean."

"He won't." Lorne said. "He wouldn't have bothered coming here if he wanted Sheppard dead."

"You can't know that," Ronon argued.

"Yes… I can." Lorne answered. "This place is one giant prison – Michael's dumping ground – he doesn't need this place, not any more, if he ever did. He just wanted Atlantis out of the way… wanted his revenge for what we did to him. If he wanted Sheppard dead – out of the way – he would have just left him here to rot, like the rest of you."

"Lorne," the man standing at the entrance to the room called in a warning, "we're running out of time. Are these people coming or not?"

Ronon took a deep breath, inwardly reeling from both the vehement bitterness in Lorne's voice, the hard edge he displayed, when Ronon was used to a mild-mannered, almost over-gentle man, and the knowledge itself.

"All right," he said at last, "I trust you."

"Ronon!" McKay protested.

"No, McKay," Ronon rounded on the scientist, "this isn't our universe – things here won't play by our rules. He knows what he's talking about."

"Ronon's right," Lorne said. "We have to go."

**

Sheppard couldn't help but let out a quiet exhaled breath when he first set eyes on Michael's ship through the front screen of the Jumper.

The ship, the belly of which they were fast approaching, was horribly reminiscent of the Mother Hive he knew, that had been uncovered on M3X-667. He couldn't help but wonder if _this_ Michael had somehow captured that ship in his own universe; where the differences had begun that had lead to the terrible truth of his, and McKay and Ronon's demise - or presumed demise, he thought, and looked once more at Michael's profile. The Wraith-Human hybrid did not appear to notice Sheppard's eyes on his as he concentrated on safely piloting the Jumper into the Dart Bay of the Hive ship. The last Sheppard remembered was that Michael had been operating out of Wraith cruisers, not a fully-fledged Hive ship.

Another disturbing thought crossed his mind. His Michael - he snorted slightly at the phrasing of the thought - had disappeared off radar some time ago. He couldn't help but worry that he was somehow flying through the galaxy in such a Hive, unrecognised... unopposed.

"I can only assume from your expression, Colonel Sheppard, that there are no such ships in your reality," Michael said as he set the Jumper down in the Bay and rose from the pilot's seat.

"No, no... I know of one," Sheppard almost sang the words and then couldn't resist taking a crack at Michael as he added, "Michael doesn't control it though. He's strictly a 'cruisers only' kind of guy."

Michael chuckled slightly. "If you are attempting to disquiet my composure, Colonel, it will take much more than that."

Sheppard felt himself taken quite roughly by the arms and pulled to his feet.

With a sarcastic smile Michael's way, he said, "You gotta give a man credit for trying."

Michael's only answer was to stride, leading Sheppard, Keller and the hybrids into the vastly cavernous Dart Bay. Even the echo of his footsteps was lost in the greatness of the open space through which they moved. Coming toward them from the corridor that let further into the ship were others of Michael's lieutenants. One of them carried a Wraith tablet in his hands. From their manner, Sheppard could only assume this was a normal occurrence whenever Michael returned to his ship. Those underlings he had left behind, working on God-only-knew-what, reporting to their commander.

"Take us out of orbit," Michael instructed without breaking step. He took the computer tablet into his hand and began to study its contents. "Once we're clear of the planet, go into hyperspace. You have the coordinates."

One of the hybrids fell into step at his side, while the other scurried away, Sheppard presumed, to the bridge to carry out Michael's orders. The hybrid waited while Michael finished his study of the data presented to him.

"Excellent," Michael said and nodded as he handed back the Wraith tablet. "See to it that the commander is adequately rewarded. Then dispatch our secondary unit and neutralise the area completely, no prisoners, no quarter to any Wraith you find still there."

"The Queen?" the hybrid questioned, and Sheppard did not miss the look of uncertainty that crossed his face.

"I have given you your orders," Michael snapped, "why do you question me?"

"Forgive me, I—"

"Take our guests to their accommodation, and then return to me. I will be in my laboratory."

Michael stopped walking then, and turned to face Sheppard. He had a placid expression on his face and was obviously trying to smile. Sheppard thought he looked constipated.

"There is no need for you to suffer discomfort as we travel," he said. "I'm certain that you'll find the facilities adequate to your needs."

"Well," Sheppard replied sarcastically, "that's mighty _neighbourly_ of you."

Either ignoring the sarcasm or missing it completely, Michael nodded and then turned and swept away down the corridor. The hybrid lieutenant tugged on Sheppard's arm, as his hybrid guards jabbed him in the small of his back to encourage him to move.

As they led him, somewhat forcefully along the twisting blue veined corridors of the Hive ship, Sheppard looked one way and then another, trying to count junctions; recognise the patterns of veining in the walls, anything that would help him to find his way back to the Dart Bay if he had the opportunity for freedom. It was a long shot and he knew it – and even if he _did_ get back to the Bay and take the Jumper there was no way he could leave the ship while they travelled in hyperspace, though he was sure that if it came to a choice between joining Michael in his insane campaign to conquer the galaxy and certain death in the oblivion of subspace, he knew which option he'd prefer.

**

From the outside its appearance was nothing short of primitive. The cloaked Jumper that skimmed the tops of the trees – far too closely for McKay's stuttering heart – suddenly dipped into a natural clearing, drawing a startled yelp from the scientist.

"Hang on, Doc," Lorne said from the co-pilot's seat. "It gets pretty rough from here."

"From here?" McKay echoed and then yelped again as the pilot of the Jumper turned the small craft on its side and slipped them through a small fissure in the side of the mountain like thread through the eye of a needle.

The narrow fissure widened after a short while into a rough sided, irregular shaped cavern, and as he peered through the front screen of the Jumper, its running lights illuminating the darkness around them, McKay realised they were inside some kind of lava tube.

"Huh," he said in surprise, "Volcani—I take it these mountains are inactive."

"Relax," Lorne told him, chuckling. "Zelenka and the team from Geophysics both agree that it will be decades before these babies are ready to blow again."

"Comforting," McKay said, not meaning it at all.

"Look, it was the only way to keep ourselves shielded from the city's sensors," Lorne said.

"What, to hide in caves like some kind of… primitive indigenous culture?" McKay snapped as they began to descend through the lava tube.

"It might not look much just yet… but you wait," Lorne told him. "What we didn't manage to bring with us from Atlantis, we've managed to salvage, or to trade for with other worlds sympathetic to the resistance."

"Resistance?" Ronon questioned from the rear compartment.

Lorne nodded, "Pockets of Humans scattered through the galaxy that haven't fallen to the Wraith or to Michael. They're all around, and for the most part operate independently. Most of them though—" he broke off with a shrug.

McKay frowned, "What?" He didn't miss the slightly strange tone in the major's voice.

"Well," Lorne said, "Most of them are less than effective – uncoordinated, all we can really do is survive."

The Jumper jolted slightly as it touched down, and as soon as it had Lorne got up from the seat and headed for the rear compartment, where the door was slowly lowering.

"Rodney McKay, as I live and breathe…"

The rich, rolling tones of the Scottish accent rolled over McKay like a balm. He couldn't help but smile. Beckett was the last person he had expected to see, his own still safely locked away in stasis until they could find some way to counter his dependency on Michael's serum.

As McKay rose, he found himself enfolded in the warmth of a hug that he remembered so poignantly it was almost painful.

"Carson," he said in greeting and his voice had a catch in it as he pulled away from the hug and immediately took the man's hand and began to pump wildly in a vigorous handshake.

"When we heard," Beckett said, "there was no _way_ we weren't gonnae come in there and get you out."

McKay saw Ronon frown and then Lorne said, "We routinely monitor communications out of the city. When they sent the message to their comm. network…" he shrugged again.

"We intercepted it," a new speaker said coldly and McKay turned to face the figure at the bottom of the Jumper's ramp. The dark haired Athosian stood with his arms folded, looking up at them with a serious expression on his face. "Anything to hamper Michael's operation – that is our reason, not out of any kind of loyalty to any of you. Do not make that mistake."

McKay blinked, and looked between Beckett and Lorne, before looking back to the speaker.

"You remember Kanaan, right?" Carson said, sounding profoundly embarrassed.

"Kanaan," McKay nodded, "yes, of course."

He thought better of mentioning the fact that in their universe, Kanaan, still a hybrid, had died at the hands of the Wraith – according to Teyla – because of his involvement with Michael.

"Well," Ronon growled, beginning to move down the ramp toward the Athosian. "It's nice to be appreciated."

**

It was only a matter of time, Keller knew, before he would want to speak with her of the reason for his bringing her. It didn't surprise her, therefore, when a hybrid came to the quarters to which she had been shown, to summon her to the laboratory.

Michael barely looked up as she was abandoned inside the door. He did not need to in order to keep her cowed and obedient. Merely being in his presence was enough to suffocate her into submission.

"It is an unwise course you take, Doctor." Michael's voice, measured and clipped, finally broke the silence. She knew better than to answer until invited. He looked up at her then, and the smouldering anger she saw in his eyes made her back up a step. "To believe you know my mind; my intentions for Sheppard and the others…"

He began to advance on her, almost stalking her as she continued to try and keep a distance between them – a futile endeavour as her knees felt like water that would no more support her than would her failing courage.

"…to believe that you can manipulate Nethaiye into turning against me…"

In the panic at his belief in her disloyalty, she blurted out, "I wouldn't—"

It was only partly the truth, and she knew even as the crushing presence of his mind in hers tightened and cut off her protest.

"Oh, you would, Doctor Keller," he rumbled at her. Far from keeping away from Michael, she collided with his workbench, and having no place left to go, cringed visibly as he leaned down until he was uncomfortably close – right inside her personal, intimate space, truly a threatening presence. She couldn't help but whimper. He continued bitterly, "If you thought for one second you could get away with it, you would do anything to undermine my influence."

"I, I just—" she stammered.

At her attempt to answer, Michael straightened and folded his arms, tilting his head as though inviting her to finish. The sardonic expression on his face irked and filled her with a sudden rush of brave anger.

"You want to talk about influences," she snapped, dread growing in her belly but unable to stop the words from spilling from her mouth, "let's think about who keeps him on a pretty even keel for the most part! If it weren't for me—"

Michael snarled, "If it weren't for you I wouldn't have to keep reminding him of where his loyalties lie!"

The adrenaline of her anger still holding the fear at bay and fuelling her folly, Jennifer almost laughed and said, "Loyalties? That's rich, coming from you. Dumping him in Atlantis like some… failed experiment to—"

It was a step too far.

Faster even than the firing of her own, panicked synapses, Michael grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back painfully, and bracing her against his forearm. At the same time he picked up an instrument from the bench beside them. It was a fast delivery hypodermic 'gun' and was loaded with a serum she recognised only too well. As he pressed the barrel of it painfully against the side of her neck, the panic won over the anger and she started, futilely, to struggle against him, pushing at him, almost clawing at his arm to try and free herself.

"You may not be a suitable candidate for hybridisation, woman," he warned, his voice low – deadly, "but there are other ways to ensure—"

"Michael, don't!" she begged, "Please… I'm sorry, I—"

"What is it?" Michael cut across her pitiful pleading as one of the hybrids appeared in the doorway.

"We have achieved a stable orbit around the planet and have taken the prisoner to the bridge as you instructed." the hybrid reported.

"Has the scout ship been launched?" Michael asked, without releasing her from his painful grasp.

"As per your orders," the hybrid confirmed.

"Very well," he said, and finally let go of her. "I will join you directly."

Jennifer sidled out from between Michael and the bench, rubbing her neck where it ached from being held at such an angle. She was trembling so hard her teeth chattered, and she couldn't help but watch as Michael, more gently than he had snatched it up, set down the hypo.

"Learn your place," he snapped at her as he began to move toward the door. "I will not warn you again. Come with me."

She took a shuddering breath, and forced her unsteady legs to carry her in his wake. She did not dare to disobey.

**

Sheppard looked around the bridge as they brought him there. It was not quite the typical bridge experience – okay, it was nothing _like_ typical in his experience, he admitted to himself – but he'd been on board Wraith bridges before, albeit not manned by hybrids; not manned by anything much at all, really. He sighed, and was finally forced to admit that he was _way_ out of his comfort zone… and he knew it was about to get worse.

"Colonel Sheppard," Michael said as he stepped onto the bridge. "I trust your quarters were adequate to the needs of your comfort?"

"Look, Michael," Sheppard said, not in the mood for pleasantries. "What do you want?"

"It is my intention to show you that your… first impressions, your… existing prejudices are in error," Michael answered.

"Error?" Sheppard asked incredulously, not able to believe what he was hearing. "Look around you. You command a ship, stolen from your former people, crewed by people you changed against their will to some… hybrid creatures with no wi—"

"I did nothing that you had not already forced upon _me_!" Michael raised his voice, cutting him off.

"That excuse, Michael, is getting old and _tired_." He gestured to the hybrids. "These people… who were they? Athosians – Teyla's people? You think she's going to thank you f—"

"What is your point, Colonel?" Michael cut him off again, and Sheppard thought he'd caught a nerve.

"My point is that whatever you're trying to show me, whatever you think is going to persuade me that your cause is just, isn't going to work. These people aren't with you willingly, and even if they were, there's nothing _right_ about what you're trying to do here. The genocide of two entire species in favour of your own twisted existence, your creations, is—"

"Just…" Michael raised his voice again, his eyes flashing, before taking a breath, and letting it out in a more controlled manner. "Wait until you have seen, Colonel Sheppard. There are great… benefits to the stability I have brought to the galaxy."

He nodded to one of the hybrids who activated the viewing screen before Sheppard could reply with the words that sat on the tip of his tongue.

"This world, I believe you call it M5G-443, was all but wiped out by the Wraith in an attempt to prevent them from making technological advances that might have… jeopardised Wraith supremacy over the Humans here," Michael explained, as the screen resolved itself into the image of a thriving pre-industrial town. The inhabitants walking the streets seemed to be going peacefully about their business, and did not seem to be in the least way deprived or struggling to make a living for themselves. He had to admit, grudgingly, that the normality of the place was, perhaps, a somewhat reasonable argument for Michael's assertion of the value of galactic stability. "As you can see, they are happy, they lack for little, and what few things they do need, my people and I try to provide."

"It changes _nothing_," Sheppard said. "They stepped out of line you'd… wipe 'em out the same as the Wraith. What did you do to them? What did you give them? The Hoffan protein…? Something even more insidious?"

Behind Michael, Sheppard saw Keller shake her head, looking almost panic stricken. He frowned, and glanced back at Michael to see his expression darken.

"You dare to talk about insidious?" Michael was agitated again, angry. His eyes flashed at Sheppard. "Do you not consider your own behaviour to be—?"

"Bottom line, Michael," Sheppard interrupted, "I'm not buying into your little… vision of utopia. It doesn't change the fact that these people have no freedom; they're just as oppressed under _you_ as they would be under the Wraith. More so… and I, for one, don't plan on joining them."

Michael took an angry breath, and then nodded. "So be it, Colonel Sheppard. _You _have, at least, decided your own fate."

"I don't believe that for one second," Sheppard spat back. "I know you too well."

"You do not know me at all," Michael growled. "Perhaps, since I cannot make you see sense – another can."

He barely turned his head to one of the hybrids and said, "Take the Colonel to see his former commander." He fixed Sheppard with an intense stare and added, "You have until we reach my laboratory facility on M4G-584 to change your mind."

Sheppard wasn't given the chance to tell him that it wasn't going to happen. Two of Michael's hybrids grabbed him by the arms and dragged him from the bridge. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Michael had already dismissed him, and had turned his attention to taking control of the ship.

**

As he tried to keep his temper, as Michael's hybrids pushed and prodded him along the twisting corridors, past featureless blue veined junctions, Sheppard wished he could have better understood Keller's warning.

Obvious enough that he shouldn't antagonise Michael, but he was sure that there was something, something that she was trying to tell him he shouldn't say, and if he shouldn't say it then naturally he wanted to know what it was.

He tried to recall his exact words, and couldn't bring to mind anything he had been saying for all of the pushes and harsh blows to the middle of his back.

One of the hybrids moved ahead of him to activate a doorway on the left hand side of the hallway. Sheppard turned to the others and with a threatening look on his face told them, "The next one of you to so much as touch me with your blaster, I swear I'll—"

"Colonel Sheppard…"

He stopped cold and, painfully slowly, turned to face the man who, barely hours ago by his own reckoning, had argued against any of them leaving Atlantis, and had only agreed to McKay's foolhardy mission to investigate M3F-227 and the three Gates there because of Sheppard's own _idiotic_ support for the scientist.

"Woolsey," he almost snarled the man's name as the anger he'd been holding back coalesced and found direction in the man that now stood before him – hale and whole, unguarded, and definitely not hybridised. A bitter picture began to form in his mind.

As if he anticipated the understanding Sheppard was coming to, Woolsey held up a placatory hand.

"This isn't what you think," he said.

Sheppard's mind, as well as his heart, was racing as he stepped inside the door and started toward the man.

"Oh, this is exactly what I'm thinking it is," he advanced on Woolsey, raising his hands, meaning to grab the man by the lapels of the Atlantis jacket he still wore, "you sorry son-of-a-bitch!"

"Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey wrapped his fingers around Sheppard's wrists as he all but lifted him off the floor and carried him back toward the bulkhead, "John… wait! Wait, you don't understand."

"I understand you sold out to save your own misera—"

"It wasn't like that," Woolsey said, "and you'd do well to listen to me; to try and understand before you end up getting yourself killed… or worse."

"Fine!" Sheppard spat, and let go of Woolsey so suddenly that the man stumbled and almost fell. Sheppard paced away. "Go on, explain it to me."

"I was given… a choi—"

"And in a true, _manly_ fashion your decided that serving Michael wou—"

"—a choice between my cooperation and the destruction of Atlantis and everyone on it: McKay, Ronon, Lorne… Michael had what he wanted. There was no difference to make other than to save the lives of the people under my command." Woolsey pressed ahead, raising his voice at first.

"How very noble of you," Sheppard answered, but in truth, at Woolsey's words, his righteous indignation was beginning to fade.

"I didn't want to see their lives needlessly wasted," Woolsey said.

"Yeah, well, newsflash, Mister Woolsey," Sheppard said bitterly, "they died all the same."

"Something I very much regret, but was not of my doing," Woolsey said with a sigh.

Sheppard sighed too, still angry, still bitter, still suffering the effects of the myriad emotions flying around inside of him. Finally, he said, "He didn't… you know…" he gestured to the man's unblemished, unchanged face and pulled a sour expression of his own.

"It was never an option," Woolsey told him. "I made it a condition of my surrender. You seem to have a very bleak opinion of Michael. He's not unreasonable."

"Michael's _insane_!" Sheppard spat.

"If you believe that, you'll make the same mistake your counterpart in this universe made," Woolsey warned softly. "He's reasoning, methodical… he has a very clear plan…"

"And is a complete and total freaking psychopath," Sheppard cried, "and that you can't see that is almost as disturbing!"

"John—"

"Don't 'John' me," Sheppard ran a hand through his hair as he regarded Woolsey, almost desperate in his need for the former base commander to understand him. "I mean… _Atlantis_? What the hell happened? Did I really fail so entirely in leaving people behind that were capable of defending the city? Was—?"

"He came for Teyla," Woolsey said softly, cutting Sheppard's rising tone to silence in an instant.

"Wha— How?" Sheppard asked, unable to decide which of the questions to ask.

"Tricked us into letting him and some of his army through the Gate with a stolen IDC and a modified Jumper we'd thought lost to Wraith gunfire months before," Woolsey said. "Before any of us knew what had happened he'd taken over Atlantis – locked us out of all the city's major systems; demanded she go to him or he was going to activate the self-destruct…"

"Let me guess," Sheppard said, knowing that Teyla would have found a way to turn even _that_ kind of disadvantage around and find the positive.

"Teyla being Teyla," Woolsey said, shaking his head slightly, "She wasn't about to let anyone else suffer because of what Michael wanted from her, and besides, she wanted her son."

"She went to him?" Sheppard asked.

"She agreed to go with him, yes," Woolsey confirmed, "and in return he would leave Atlantis and all her people, and he would reunite her with her son."

"So… I'm guessing she…" Sheppard couldn't yet see how such an event could have led to Michael capturing the city, "…changed her mind – somehow pissed him off?"

"Kanaan, along with Doctor Mc—"

"Kanaan?" Sheppard blinked. "Teyla's Kanaan?"

Woolsey nodded, and then said, "He and Doctor McKay figured out a way to disable Michael's control over Atlantis, only…"

He trailed off with a sigh, and Sheppard frowned as he prompted, "Only?"

"It turned out to be a very wrong thing to do…"

**

_Hatred flared strong and sharp, cutting a swath through his patience that let Kanaan's recklessness surface as he saw Michael at last. His former captor stood, overseeing the work of two of his hybrids in the Control Room. Just a little further, to the head of the steps and they would have him._

_Ronon caught his arm, holding him back and shook his head sharply, pushing him back, behind the two marines that accompanied them. He understood the message. Teyla would never forgive Ronon if she thought he was in any way responsible for anything happening to him. Kanaan was not so sure._

_The movement on the stairs cost them the advantage of surprise, and Michael ducked behind the console even as Ronon pulled the trigger on his gun, taking down one of the hybrids, before ducking as they returned fire. The marine, who stood where Ronon had, a moment before, been standing, crumpled to the ground. Kanaan bent to pick up his fallen weapon._

_"Find Teyla!" Ronon yelled back to him, even as the Satedan had to roll aside to avoid the shot aimed toward him by the second hybrid. He didn't have time to say more, as Michael leaped toward Ronon._

_Kanaan hesitated._

_"Go!" the Satedan yelled, but if Ronon kept Michael busy, Kanaan might have a clear shot at him and it would be over. He started to raise his weapon._

_Ronon blocked the punch Michael aimed at his face and then swung a roundhouse that connected with the Wraith-Human hybrid, but it was not enough to stop him from ducking beneath the second roundhouse, coming from the left. Michael came up, already aiming a blow toward Ronon's middle. Ronon caught his hand and instead began a rapid back and forth exchange of blow against blow._

_The movement became confusing and Kanaan, who tried to find an aim, growled in frustration. Each time he thought he had Michael in his sights the momentum of the fight would carry Ronon into his line of fire. He could not risk hitting the man._

"I should have fired anyway," Kanaan told them, his voice a low rumble in the silence, and Ronon and McKay exchanged glances. "I know what you're thinking, but even if I'd hit Ronon, I still would have had time to take Michael down, I know I would."

His voice was bitter, not at all regretful, and still the hatred loomed, a dark shadow over the Athosian man that Ronon knew, from Teyla's description of him, to be a gentle and considered man. The difference bothered him.

"So what happened?" McKay asked, breaking the silence that had fallen. "Where was Teyla?"

_The Satedan and the former Wraith fought bitterly, neither giving ground, neither showing mercy, as the fight grew more and more ugly. Ronon caught hold of Michael's arm and swung him toward a bank of control panels. The shadows were briefly illuminated by the shower of sparks that flared as the Wraith-Human hybrid shorted the circuits._

_Ronon roared, as if in triumph and for a moment Kanaan allowed himself to believe that it was over, but even stunned, Michael fought back, landing a blow before being blocked, and then lifted by the Satedan, who slammed him once more into the control panels, before he tossed him aside._

_As Michael found his feet again, to continue the fight against the relentless Satedan, a flicker in the doorway drew Kanaan's attention away from the struggling bodies. Teyla stood there, a horrified expression on her face._

_"Teyla, run!"_

_Ronon had seen her too, and urged her to escape before he resumed his attack on Michael, but she shook her head and stretched out her hand toward them._

_"Ronon, don't!" she cried, "Stop!"_

_Ronon did not stop, and Kanaan's anger flared again, as he believed his suspicions well founded. Abandoning the attempt to intervene in the fight between Michael and Ronon, he started toward Teyla, intercepting her as she began to cross the room toward the others and grabbed her by the arm._

_"Kanaan, let me go," she demanded hotly._

_"No!" Michael yelled in anger, and redoubled his efforts against the Satedan, jarring the man's elbow backward on itself and causing a loud crack to echo across the Control Room, even above the sounds of their growling. "Let her go!"_

_Kanaan took one look behind him at the two still fighting, before he grabbed a firmer hold of Teyla's elbow, and all but dragged her away._

**

"When I caught up to the two of them," Woolsey said, "Kanaan and Teyla were arguing, almost fighting really. Neither of us listened to her, and we were the greater fools for it."

"Boy, do I ever know _that_ story," Sheppard said softly.

_"Kanaan, you __**must**__ listen to me," she said urgently as she pulled herself free of his grasp. "Mister Woolsey, please… we are all in great danger—"_

_"Of course we are," Woolsey agreed, "Michael almost took over the city and—"_

_"No," she insisted, "you do not understand. He… it isn't—"_

_"We must confine her," Kanaan interrupted. "Get back to the Control Room. Ronon will need our help."_

_"Confine her?" Woolsey asked, confused._

_"Trust me, Mister Woolsey," Kanaan said, "I know what I saw, and I know what I heard; what I felt."_

_"Oh, Kanaan," Teyla said softly, shaking her head, "Even __**you**__ do not understand."_

_"I understand that you are not the woman I—"_

_The discordant, regular beat of the Atlantis warning signal cut him off, and he made another grab for Teyla's arm. This time Woolsey took the other._

_"You must let me—" she started, but Michael's voice over the intercom cut across her desperation._

_"Kanaan!" he snapped. "I know you can hear me. That alarm – if you're not aware – is Atlantis' self-destruct device. I've armed it; set it for ten minutes. That is the amount of time you have to consider the offer I'm about to make you. If you will surrender Teyla to me, I'll disarm the device, sparing the lives of everyone on this base. If not, you, and everyone else…will die."_

_Teyla pulled at the arm he held as Woolsey looked at her in horror. "You must let me go to him," she said._

_"No!" Kanaan tightened his grip, even as Woolsey let go._

_"It is the only way, Kanaan, and you know it," she pleaded with him. "This is not…M—"_

_"Shut up!" Kanaan yelled, "I can't __**think**_ _with you talking at me like this; that sound… his mind…"_

_"Kanaan, listen," she implored him. "Listen to that mind if you will not listen to me."_

"But of course, he didn't," Woolsey said. "And neither did Colonel Hollick when he arrived just a moment later. In fact _he_ listened to Kanaan in the belief that some… unspoken command had passed between Teyla and Michael in the Control Room; that she was somehow working with Michael."

"Heard that one before too," Sheppard said darkly. "So what happened?"

"McKay and Kanaan, as I said," Woolsey answered, "While Hollick kept a watch over Teyla, the two of them figured out a way to use one of the Puddle Jumpers in the underwater bay to dial the Gate. Zelenka managed to work around some of Michael's lock-out codes and lowered the shield…"

"…and the rush of the event horizon forming took out the Jumper, like we saw in the Gate Room," Sheppard said, putting things together in his mind.

"Once the Jumper was destroyed, Michael's power failed and the marines were able to go in to… retake the Gate Room, the Control Room," Woolsey said. "Only problem was," Woolsey said, glancing toward the door. "It wasn't Michael."

Sheppard frowned.

"What do you mean, _it wasn't Michael_?" he asked, "He and Kanaan fought on top of the central tower. Nethaiye said, he told us Teyla finally threw the bastard down, he—"

"That was what Teyla had been trying to warn us," Woolsey said. "It wasn't Michael, and in the end we forced her hand to prove it to us, and that single action brought about the destruction of Atlantis as we knew it."

"How?"

"The destruction of his Jumper, and when Teyla threw the other from the tower, each event triggered actions in Michael's plan." Woolsey told him. "He'd already foreseen it would happen, set contingencies in place against our resistance. Michael had two Hive ships just outside of sensor range. When he received the signal, knew of the other's death, he simply sent them in against us. He brought them out of hyperspace practically in orbit, and launched the darts immediately. We didn't even have the chance to clean up."

"You keep saying 'other.' The 'other,' Woolsey," Sheppard said with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't think I would simply… walk into a place as dangerous for me as Atlantis without a failsafe, Colonel Sheppard?" Michael asked from the doorway. "I thought you said you did not take me for a fool."

"Yeah, well," Sheppard answered as he turned to face the former Wraith. "Sometimes even the most intelligent make the most stupid mistakes."

"This was not a mistake I intended to make," Michael answered with deadly calm, "and perhaps now that you understand my resolve, my… determination to see my plans to fruition, you too will avoid a costly mistake."

Sheppard shook his head.

"Answer's still no, Mikey." he said softly.

"Pity," Michael said the single word as though it were an expression of disgust. "It would have been so much easier had you agreed."

"For you?" Sheppard asked, "Well then, I'm happy not to oblige."

"No, Colonel Sheppard," Michael corrected him, "easier for you."

"So tell me, Michael," Michael tilted his head as Sheppard looked up at him again. "How _did_ you do it?"

He had a pretty good idea of the words that were about to come from Michael's mouth, but wanted the confirmation just the same. Michael turned and began to walk away, speaking quietly as he went, as the hybrids came into the room to once more take Sheppard by the arms.

"I sent a clone."

**

That cold, heavy feeling that had settled in his belly since he arrived through the Stargate only increased as Michael's transport ship set down on the surface of the planet. Familiar rocky plains with sparse vegetation stretched ahead of him as he stepped out of the ship, and was propelled forward by the less than gentle nudge from the hybrid behind him.

He couldn't help but remember the last time he'd been here – or _there,_ he reminded himself – nor could he forget Michael's retelling of what had happened on this planet in _this_ universe, albeit some distance from the place that Michael had landed the ship.

He tried to catch Keller's eye as they walked, but she kept her face downturned, followed almost exactly in Michael's footsteps and refused to be drawn to look at him. If he wanted to know what was going on, he was going to have to ask.

"So," he started, almost conversationally, "more guided tours? Visits with some other poster child for _Campaign Michael_?"

"You already know why we are here, Colonel," Michael answered after a moment's silence in which Sheppard suspected he was communicating with his hybrids, because a moment later two of them took him roughly by the arms, and the sound of blasters being drawn from holsters told him the hybrids behind him had pointed their weapons at his back. "You have chosen your fate."

"Look," he said, testing the strength of the grips on his arms. There was little chance he would escape them. "Michael, you don't need to do this. This doesn't need to be how it is."

"I do not intend to engage in a circular argument with you, Colonel Sheppard," Michael told him coldly. "We will soon reach my laboratory, and there, if you do not agree to cooperate willingly, I will take steps to ensure your cooperation."

Michael paused and glanced behind him to look first at Sheppard, and then at Keller, who almost whimpered as his eyes fell on her.

"You need not worry," Michael continued as he turned back to continue walking. "Doctor Keller will ensure that there are no lasting ill effects once the process begins."

The heavy feeling became a sickening one, as Sheppard began to doubt the courage of his conviction that Michael was bluffing; that he had brought him here simply to frighten him into submission – otherwise, why trouble himself to come all the way to the laboratory here, when he could simply have used the facilities on Atlantis, or on his ship.

"Why would I worry about something that's not going to happen anyway?" Sheppard said, trying to sound confident in the face of his doubts.

"You underestimate me, Colonel," Michael said, and swept ahead of the small landing party into the entrance of a cave complex that Sheppard recognised, or at least partly recognised. When he'd seen the place in his own reality it had not been until after Michael had destroyed the laboratory.

With worry and fear mounting, he began to struggle as the hybrids tried to bring him inside.

**

"Nothing that you've said convinces me that there's any reason we shouldn't go back in there; take back the city," Ronon said gruffly when Kanaan finally finished speaking. The Satedan leaned back on his chair, frowning at the others around the table.

"It isn't as easy as it sounds," Lorne said, coming to join them, setting his own meagre meal down in front of him.

"You seemed to do it easy enough to get us out," Ronon countered.

Lorne gave him an apologetic look. "Timing is everything, Ronon," he said.

"Meaning?" the big Satedan was in no mood for riddles. He took offense, quite deeply, to the thought of Michael's people in Atlantis, to much of what he'd learned in the past few hours. He glanced at McKay, to see if the scientist felt the same, but couldn't read past the frightened look on the other man's face.

"Meaning we can only get in undetected if we go in masked by one of their own Jumpers – one that's expected." Lorne said.

"Why should we be undetected?" Ronon asked, raising his voice just a little. "You have the people here, the resources—"

"And we have survived precisely because we have not engaged in recklessness," Kanaan said harshly.

"Who are you calling reckless?" Ronon said. He came swiftly to his feet and took a step closer to where Kanaan was sitting on top of a barrel. The Athosian also got to his feet, and though dwarfed by Ronon squared up to him.

"Since you got here you have proposed nothing but violent, ill-thought-out reprisals against the hybrids in control of the city, and for what?" Kanaan snapped.

"They shouldn't _be_ there," he said, becoming more and more irritated with Kanaan every time the Athosian opened his mouth.

"Why not?" Kanaan said, "Why worry about it. Atlantis is finished, it—"

"Only because you let it b—"

"How dare you. How dare you come in here with accusations and—"

"It's the truth, you—"

"Guys!" Lorne called, his voice raised. He whistled shrilly and repeated, "Guys, this isn't helping."

Ronon fell silent, as did Kanaan, though neither of them backed down. Ronon could accept so much for Teyla's sake, but if Kanaan thought that he could justify hiding in the bowels of the earth while Michael's people walked freely in Atlantis then—

"Ronon," Lorne said, and when Ronon's anger settled enough for him to see once more, he turned to Lorne who had come to his side. Lorne pressed a hand against his arm, trying to move him away from Kanaan, "please, just listen to me for a second."

"He does not change," Kanaan muttered petulantly.

"I'm listening," Ronon grumbled, though he did not take his eyes off the Athosian, nor did his ire toward him cool. He saw the usually vociferous McKay still shocked into silence by what he'd so far heard.

"I think you're going to have to accept that there are things about this reality that might not match with yours," Lorne said. The regret in his voice finally drew Ronon's attention away from Kanaan. "It isn't that we want Michael's people walking around freely on Atlantis, but honestly, there's very little we _can_ do about it. You knew that – recognised that even before _any_ of us."

Ronon sighed, not ready to admit defeat – unwilling to leave the city to its fate. There _had_ to be a way.

"How did I?" he asked gruffly, "What do you mean?"

"It wasn't long after Michael took over the city… he was chipping away at our resolve. One by one each of us was falling either to hybridisation, like Hollick, or just—"

"Woolsey rolled over and played dead. Offered himself up like some kind of prize cow to market!" Kanaan spat, then rounded on Lorne and said, "If you intend to tell them, Lorne, then at least tell them the truth."

Lorne ignored the Athosian's ire, and, turning a look of appeal McKay's way, spread his hands and said, "We had little choice."

"Ronon," McKay said softly, "please, let's hear what the man has to say."

Reluctantly, Ronon lowered himself into his chair once more and rumbled a brief, "Go on," in Lorne's direction.

"There was a core group of us," Lorne took his seat again, picking at his food as he spoke and Ronon felt a pang of guilt that it was probably cold by now. "We managed to hold out for several months, biding our time, learning what we could about the operation of Michael's forces in the city. Our chance finally came when something happened on one of his bases that he couldn't leave to others, he had to go, and left Nethaiye in charge. The kid was green. It was easy to manipulate the situation to the point where we managed to free ourselves from the lockdown Michael had us under."

"Wouldn't I have liked to be a fly on the wall when _that_ conversation took place," McKay quipped, though entirely without humour. "Oh, by the way, Daddy, while you were away…"

Lorne smiled slightly. "Even though they'd been in the city for months, we still knew it better than they did… scattered like rats initially, but regrouped in one of the abandoned sections after a while…"

_"Why are we even talking about this?" Ronon rounded on the small group of survivors as they argued about the best way to rid the city of the hybrids in Michael's absence. "There's no way we can do that. The only option we have is fight our way up to the Gate Room, dial the Gate and get the hell out of here."_

_"Abandon the city?" Lorne said and rounded on Ronon hotly, "After everything we've been through—"_

_"Look around you, Evan," Ronon snapped, "We're practically unarmed, hiding in shadows, squabbling among ourselves. We have no idea how many of them there are. Away from Atlantis we can regroup, recruit, gather our strength and when we're ready and actually stand a chance __**then**__ we can come back and retake Atlantis."_

_"Ronon's right," McKay said, looking up from the tablet he'd managed to procure somewhere along the way. "From down here there's only so much we can do – yeah, maybe we can survive, but…for how long?"_

_"We can't leave Teyla," Kanaan turned from where he was staring at the wall. "She wouldn't leave us… and what about the doctor?"_

_"Keller made her choice," Ronon growled… and stalked away as the arguments began again._

"We didn't listen to you, Ronon," Lorne said. "We were holding out the vain hope that we could somehow, with McKay's technological command of the city, and our knowledge in favour of theirs, win out over their superior forces, greater numbers, and regain control of Atlantis."

"So what happened?" Ronon asked quietly, subdued by the recount. "What changed your mind?"

"We managed a week," Lorne said, "or thereabouts. Making forays into the main city, grabbing what we could in the way of arms and supplies… food. McKay managed to patch into the city's computers and keep them from tracing his position, but it soon became clear that we weren't even making a dent with all the things we were doing. Then Michael came back… and he wasn't happy…"

_"What do you mean, escaped?" Kanaan advanced on McKay as the scientist came to deliver the news. McKay backed up, but Kanaan kept on coming, until Ronon stepped between the two of them._

_"McKay?" Lorne asked, in more considered tones._

_"Well," McKay stammered, looking at the information he'd downloaded from the city's computers. "Just that. He took her with him when he went to deal with the uprising on M7T-994 and, while he was busy, she…escaped."_

_"So Teyla's gone?" Ronon asked for clarification._

_"From the city, yeah," McKay told him._

_"Well, now it's even __**more**__ obvious that we don't stand a chance in staying here," Ronon reiterated the point he'd made the previous week. "Teyla's out there, probably organising a resistance as we speak. We have to get to her. Find out where she is and join her."_

_"And what if she comes back?" Kanaan countered. "Gathers those resistance forces and head back to Atlantis – she's going to need us here, on the inside."_

_"She's not that—"_

_"Michael, it would seem," McKay interrupted Ronon as he spoke, "has anticipated that eventuality. He's already started bringing in a number of hybrids from off world to strengthen his defences."_

_"And she'd know that," Ronon turned to Kanaan in appeal, "you __**know**__ she would."_

_"Then what are you saying?" Lorne asked._

_"Exactly what I've been saying all along…that __**we**__ have to leave," Ronon said._

_"No," Kanaan said. "Not if there's the slightest possibility that Teyla will—"_

_"Kanaan, Ronon's right," McKay insisted, "She's not coming back."_

"Another week went past and half of our number came to the realisation that it was true. Teyla wasn't stupid enough to try and attack Michael here," Lorne said.

"The others?" McKay asked, looking somewhat pointedly at Kanaan.

"I knew her better than that!" Kanaan insisted. "If she wasn't coming, it was because something else was keeping her away." He looked at Lorne as he said, "I still believe that."

"I know you do, Kanaan," Lorne nodded as he spoke, "but it doesn't change what happened."

"Which was?" Ronon asked with a sigh.

"We agreed to make an assault on the Gate Room, if nothing else than to disable the Gate and stop Michael from bringing in new soldiers." Lorne answered. "The planning was as tight as we could get it with the information we had… which was pretty accurate…"

"But I'm guessing something went wrong," McKay said.

"Aye, Rodney," Beckett joined them, carrying in his hand a loaded syringe. "Something went very wrong."

Kanaan unfolded from his seat, uncrossing his arms, and moving to the doctor's side. Ronon watched, puzzled, as Kanaan rolled up his sleeve and allowed Beckett to inject him.

"Everyone had forgotten about one thing," Beckett said as he withdrew the needle from the Athosian's arm. "Kanaan's DNA."

"Turns out that Michael had been playing with us all along," Lorne explained. "Seeing what we would do. He knew where we were. He knew our plans, and there was not a damn thing we could do about it, because he was inside. Kanaan's. Head."

Ronon, as McKay, turned a horrified look Kanaan's way. Kanaan met their eyes, unrepentant.

"It was a simple enough plan," Lorne said, trying to draw their attention away from the furious Athosian. "McKay would dial the Gate so that Ronon and those that wanted to go with him to find Teyla could escape. Then he'd trigger an overload to disable the Gate. The rest of us would give them support for as long as it took, and then go back to the hit and run operations we'd been making from the depths of the city. It didn't quite turn out that way…"

_If he'd thought about it for even a minute, Lorne would have realised that there was something terribly wrong. Michael wouldn't have been so careless as to leave the corridors leading to the Gate Room, the Control Room, and other sensitive areas unguarded, even if he had moved his base of operations away from the Central Tower. They made it all the way into the Control Room before he realised his mistake._

_The first shot came from the stairwell above that led to the Jumper Bay. A small group of hybrid soldiers were making their way down toward the Control Room, while from the neighbouring corridors the sounds of running feet began to echo through the otherwise empty Gate Room._

_"McKay!" Lorne called out, trying to hurry the scientist._

_"I'm on it!" McKay yelled back in irritation, ducking down under the control desk to pull the front panel, and try to reroute power to the DHD so that he could dial – let Ronon and the others make their escape and somehow try to join them. Sparks exploded against the side of the control desk as the hybrids in the stairwell concentrated their fire his way._

_"McKay!" Ronon's frantic cry from the Gate Room cut through the sounds of gunfire._

_"I'm working as fast as I can," McKay practically screamed in response. His voice rose in panic a moment later as a second shot impacted the control desk close by his ear. "Lorne, keep them off me!"_

_Splitting his already depleted forces, Lorne and two others charged the stairwell, firing as they raced up to meet the hybrids that were almost on top of them. Lorne dodged the gunfire, reaching up to grab, and overbalance the first of the hybrids, while Kanaan and the others covered him from below and more by luck than judgement, between them, with gunfire and dangerous hand to hand combat on the stairs, the two groups managed to secure McKay the space and time to get power to the desk._

_"Now we're talking," McKay called up to Lorne, who stood guard on the stairs._

_"Make it fast, McKay," Lorne called back, and threw himself to the side as another small group of hybrids appeared at the head of the stairs. "I don't know how long I can keep them off you."_

_"All I need is a couple of minutes," the scientist called back._

_"You're not going to get those couple of minutes," Kanaan called frantically from the head of the stairs down to the Gate Room. "Make it faster!"_

_Lorne tried to see from where he stood the new troubles that Kanaan had spotted, and watched as, from another corridor, more hybrids were advancing on the Gate Room._

_"Ronon!" Lorne called a warning to the Satedan. He was already pinned down behind the ruined Jumper by the first group of hybrids, was making some headway, but if the second group reached the Gate Room, he would be cornered, with no chance of escape._

_"I see 'em!" Ronon called back, and shifted his position, leaving the men in his group to keep the first group of enemies at bay while he fired relentlessly into the oncoming hybrids._

_Lorne jumped as the railing beside him crackled with the energy of a blaster impact that had missed him by inches, and was forced to abandon any thoughts of going to help Ronon, and to concentrate his fire against those hybrids that were even now spilling into the stairwell._

_"I got it!" McKay cried suddenly, and from the corner of his eye, Lorne saw the man barely peek his head up from behind the desk and rapidly punch a sequence of symbols._

_"McKay, we—" Lorne started, letting off a rapid stream of fire toward the head of the stairs. There was no way they would be able to escape the way they'd planned – down the stairs and out through the corridors bordering the Gate Room._

_As if he'd read Lorne's mind, McKay called out, "Up! Get up to the Jumper Bay. I can lock him out of the bay controls. It's your only chance."_

_In the Gate Room below the wormhole rushed into existence, and Lorne knew, without doubt, that Ronon and the others would try to reach the Gate as planned, no matter what. _

_"Kanaan, go!" McKay ordered the Athosian, "Go with Lorne. There's nothing more you can do here."_

_"What about—" Lorne started to argue. He still hadn't ascended a single step – loathed the thought of leaving any man behind._

_"I'm fine!" McKay said and, as Lorne watched, he started to pull the cover from one of the other control panels. "Believe me, I run really fast when I'm cornered."_

_Lorne shook his head and waited for another moment, watching the man below working frantically with the computer tablet to bypass the Jumper Bay controls, and lock Michael and his people out of them. It was uncharacteristically brave of the scientist, and a part of Lorne knew he shouldn't let McKay's efforts be wasted._

_"Come with us, McKay!" he yelled as Kanaan joined him on the stairs. The Athosian began firing upward, freeing Lorne to come back to the doctor's side. He tugged at his arm._

_"No." McKay pushed him away. "The only chance you and the others have of ever defeating Michael and redeeming the city is if we can stop his easily accessing the Stargate. I have to complete the overload. Believe me, as soon as it's building I'm down those stairs and through the Gate with Ronon."_

_"You'll never get down there!" Lorne argued, pulling at McKay's arm again._

_"I'll make it!" McKay argued, pushing at Lorne again. "I told you, I—"_

_"—run really fast when you're cornered, yeah," Lorne said sorrowfully. "McKay—"_

_"Don't make me say it again," McKay told him._

_Finally, Lorne nodded, and returned to Kanaan's side – leading the small band of resistance up the stairs toward the Jumper Bay. What he couldn't see was how McKay could possibly make his intended escape. The last thing he heard was the frantic exchange between Ronon and McKay._

_"Any time you're ready, McKay," Ronon called up the stairs._

_"Almost there," McKay answered. "Almost there."_

_Lorne felt a little better knowing that Ronon hadn't already left through the Gate with the others and simply abandoned McKay._

"…it took us a while to clear the Jumper Bay, racing against time to stop Michael regaining control of the bay's doors, but…" Lorne shrugged, and Ronon thought he looked uncomfortable. "…with the added help we got from Carson…we made it – used the Jumper to reach the mainland."

"Carson?" McKay asked, and Ronon too was curious to hear how the cloned Beckett had escaped his counterpart's fate.

"I'd been… biding my time," Beckett said. "Hiding in plain sight, as it were, letting Michael think that everything was just the same as it had always been. So long as I never actively tried to oppose him, none of his mental alarm bells got triggered, so… I was able to build up a supply of the serum he gave me – eventually to synthesise my own. Once I did that, I didn't need him any more and so I managed to convince some of the less fervent of the mercenaries of the error of their ways. When I learned what the others were planning, I put together as much equipment as I could, and took my small band out to meet Lorne and the others. It was something Michael hadn't counted on."

"And it was what turned the tide of our fight to get out of the city. Without Carson, we would have, all of us, been captured and killed."

"But what about Kanaan," McKay asked, taking the question that Ronon had been about to ask. "You said he was the reason your plans were revealed to Michael in the first place."

"We lost a lot of good men that day, Rodney," Beckett said, "and in spite of what you might think; what impression you might have, Kanaan is a good man too."

Ronon gave a rumble of dissent, but asked, "So what did you do?"

"The only thing they could do," Kanaan said with distaste clear in his voice.

"We had to get rid of his Wraith DNA to block any access Michael had into his mind," Beckett said. "We had no choice. We had to give Kanaan the retrovirus."

**

Sheppard tried again, increasingly more franticly, to free himself from the restraints as he watched Michael filling the syringe with a deep green liquid.

"I'm telling you, Michael," he said, "this isn't necessary. You let me go – let McKay and Ronon go, and I give you my word we're out of your hair. We'll find a way back and—"

"Spare me, Colonel Sheppard," Michael said, sounding tired, "you and I both know that is something that's not going to happen, and you have refused to cooperate otherwise, so you leave me no choice but to administer my retrovirus and ensure your loyalty."

"You're insane," Sheppard growled, and struggled even more with the restraints. Dread filled his gut, threatened to suffocate him, and he began to feel the bile rising in his throat, seeking a way out. He clenched his teeth against the rising nausea.

"So I have been told," Michael said, and began to cross the room toward him. "You should save your strength, Colonel. You will need it in the hours to come. Doctor Keller…"

"Please, Sheppard, listen to him," she came closer to him, laid a hand on his arm as though she thought that would convince him to acquiesce. "I can give you a sedative. Make it easier on y—"

"Don't you _dare_!" he snapped, turning his head toward her so quickly it sent a shooting pain down the entire side of his body. "There's no _way_ I'm becoming one of this maniac's creatures, I—"

He stopped as he felt Michael's hand press against the side of his head, holding it to the side, facing Keller.

"So be it," he said calmly.

"Michael, don't!" Sheppard cried out as he felt the cold sting of the needle against his neck. "Not—"

He felt as though Michael had injected liquid fire into his bloodstream as the serum raced through his veins, igniting the inferno in his brain that stole the oxygen from his lungs. Even so he somehow managed the agonised cry that escaped his lips as his muscles tensed and his body began to convulse. He bit his tongue, and tasted blood in his mouth.

"It really would have been better if you had accepted Doctor Keller's offer," Michael said as he released the hold he had on Sheppard's head.

Sheppard forced his head to turn, to look at Michael.

"You motherfu—" he growled, unable to finish as a wave of pain stole what little breath he had managed to snatch, until he could manage another sharply indrawn breath, "I'm gonna kill you!"

"There is no need for you to suffer," Michael answered. "Administer the sedative, Doctor Keller."

As though mentioning her name had been to target her, Keller was enveloped in the crackling energy of a blaster, and slumped to the floor. Her head caught the side of the bed as she went down.

Confusion cut through the pain for long enough for Sheppard to see the three figures that rushed into the laboratory. One of them was a stranger to him, but the others… such a welcome sight to his blurring eyes.

"Try to stay calm, John. Breathe deeply."

The voice was like a soothing balm, cooling the fire, and bringing tears to his eyes. He never thought to hear her voice again.

"Teyla," Michael hissed, and turned away from watching Sheppard's plight.

"Hello, Michael," she answered with such bitterness that even Sheppard cringed from it. He watched her toss something to the third figure that had entered the laboratory with her, before, in barely enough time for his racing heart to beat once, she launched herself toward Michael, striking out with a ferocity that matched the bitterness he'd heard.

"You're too late, Teyla," Michael told her as he blocked her attack, meeting the blows and answering with vicious strikes of his own. "It's done."

"We shall see," she answered, catching his forearm against her own wrist, and kicking out toward his knee.

He swept his arm around hers, out and down so that he could catch her foot, and try to lever her backwards, throw her down, but she clearly anticipated the action, and leaped, throwing herself backward and adding to the momentum, she used his attack to turn her full circle in the air and bring her back to her feet.

"Sheppard, John…" the accented voice pulled his attention away from the fight between Michael and Teyla and through the growing haze he turned his head into the concerned, bespectacled face of Radek Zelenka. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he breathed, "I—"

"Don't try to speak," Zelenka told him. "I'm going to give you an injection. It will slow Michael's retrovirus; maybe give us time to find a way—"

"Do it," he whispered, and tried to tip his head back to give Zelenka access to his neck.

He barely felt the sudden stab of the needle, or heard the long hiss of the injection system in the hypodermic gun, just felt the added burn, the rush of the fight now being waged inside of him, and thought, ironically, that it mirrored the bitter conflict being waged in the lab beside him.

"It's done," Zelenka called out.

"Get him out of here," Teyla ordered without breaking stride. "Don't wait for me. I'll find you."

The last thing Sheppard remembered as Zelenka and the other man hooked his arms over their shoulders, and all but carried him from the laboratory, was the flying fabric of Teyla's skirts, and the beautiful sight of her creamy-coffee coloured skin turning circles around Michael and his vicious blows.

**

His head felt as though it was about to explode, and his mouth felt like that bottom of a latrine, and for several seconds, that seemed to stretch into many minutes, Sheppard couldn't recall where he was or what he was doing. Must have been _some_ all nighter.

He felt as though he had a fever; as if his body were somehow wrapped in the heat of a tropical day. What the hell was the matter with him?

In the time it took him to think about opening his eyes, everything came flooding back. Michael – the retrovirus – Teyla…

He took in a massive breath, gasping for air as the weight of it all descended on him, and tried to sit up.

"Easy, John… easy," her voice again, and the press of her cool hand against his chest, worked its soothing magic over him. Slowly he opened his eyes.

"Teyla…" he croaked.

In spite of the blackening bruise on her cheek, she was the most beautiful he had ever seen her. Noble and strong as she regarded him with her head tilted slightly to one side. Her brown eyes were full of concern.

"How long was I—did he—am I—?" he asked all at once.

"You are stable," she told him softly, "for now."

"Oh God," he whispered.

"Try not to worry," she said. "The medicine we have given you will help."

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around.

It was dark outside of the small circle of light cast by her lantern, but he was sure he was inside some kind of shelter, but one that was not entirely complete. It seemed to him like some kind of hide, or tent, or—

"We are on New Athos, waiting for the transport ship to come and take us to my base," she told him. "It will not be long now. Do you think you can stand?"

"I don't know, I… can try," he said, and started to sit up.

He had to lean on her as the room around him began to spin when he moved, his equilibrium upset by the cocktail of drugs inside of him. Eventually the whirling dizziness stopped and he was able to let go. As she moved away, and the blanket fell from him, he realised that he was undressed.

"Where are my clothes?" he asked, feeling the heat of embarrassment raise his temperature still further.

"You have had a high fever, John," she told him. "We had to keep you cool, bathe you with cold water. It is a side effect of the drug we gave you."

"That wasn't what I asked," he said, feeling beneath the blanket with his hand, he was relieved to discover himself still covered with his shorts.

"Beside you are clothes you can wear," she told him, "I am sorry, we had to cut you from the others."

"Great," he said, reaching for the native Athosian clothing she had found for him. He held up the linen shirt and added, "Thanks."

She nodded and moved away to the doorway of their rough shelter, no doubt to allow him the privacy to dress. It took some effort, as weak as he felt, and he had to stop frequently, to take deep breaths and drive away the panic that was growing inside of him each time his mind brought him back to the truth that, little short of a miracle, he was going the same way as Major Lorne.

Trembling almost visibly, once he was dressed he crossed the room to stand behind Teyla as she stared out into the New Athos night.

"What now?" he asked softly.

"Now we wait," she told him, and turned to face him, slowly looking up into his face.

"Teyla, I—"

The sting of her hand against the side of his face; the burning left in its wake, completely cut off anything he had been about to say. He blinked in surprise, and then frowned in confusion as she slapped him a second time.


	3. Act 3

**Act 3**

"What the _hell_ was that for?" Sheppard asked, a frown creasing his stinging face. Teyla started to raise her hand to slap him a third time, but he held out a hand between them. "Go ahead, if it makes you feel better, sure, slap me again, but just remember…. whatever it is that he did to piss you off – I'm not him."

"You cannot tell me," she said with an angry tilt to her head, her eyes flashing in his direction, "that you do not have the same feelings for _your_ Teyla as John Sheppard claimed for me."

_How does it feel, Colonel Sheppard, to know—?_

"Look, Teyla," Sheppard said, raising his voice slightly to drown out the voice inside of him… the memory… and the inherent threat it carried. "Whatever he said—"

"He said _nothing,_" she snarled. Her chin jutted forward as though challenging him to argue with her, to deny the truth of her words, "and did even less when I most needed his support!"

"Teyla—"

"Tell me," she demanded, "have you believed _your_ Teyla's words. Have you tried to understand the struggle she faced; the bleak kernel of darkness and betrayal that sits in her soul?"

"Do I understand her compassion for Michael?" he asked, and then answering his own question, snapped, "No. Do I get the feelings he's made her think she has for him? No. Do I think that she needs someone to shake some sense into her? Hell yes! Michael's evil, Teyla, pure and simple. He's insane, unsupportable, irredeemable. There's no hope. Just shoot him like the rabid dog he is and—"

"And yet, she loves him," Teyla interrupted.

"She _thinks_ she has feelings for him." He refused to acknowledge that what Teyla described as her feelings for Michael could, in any way, be called love. "He messed with her head, and now she doesn't even know which way is up. She doesn't _love_ him. You know that. You—"

"What makes you think I do not feel the same way?"

Sheppard narrowed his eyes, and looked at her harshly for a moment that stretched away, longer than reality, before he said, "Everything you've done since I met you."

She looked at him – he decided that wasn't quite accurate – her eyes bore into him for a long time in the ever deepening silence between them. The look of strength and determination pulled at him, wrapped around his middle and made him want to do something very foolish – something which no doubt would have earned him another slap – and he checked himself even as he started to reach out for her.

"They came here first," she said softly, moving out through the doorway in such a way that invited him to follow. He did, almost compelled to hear her story. "As if having been taken by Michael had not been enough, my people had to suffer the punishment the Wraith visited upon them for the complicity with their alienated 'brother.' He knew what they intended… and he kept it from me."

"Your Sheppard?" Sheppard asked.

Teyla nodded, "All the while I had been sick with the after-effects of the birth of my son and all that had happened to me at Michael's hands, Sheppard had been negotiating with the Wraith he called Todd, to form an alliance with him and the queen he served."

"She told him to do that… betrayed him and used us to get at Michael," Sheppard answered.

"In your universe, perhaps," she said.

"Why not here?" Sheppard frowned, confused.

"Because _here_, Michael has that queen in his custody," she said simply. "When Todd colluded with Sheppard; when he formed the beginnings of his Wraith Alliance, he _had_ no queen."

"How do you _know_ all this?" Sheppard said, backing away a step and looking at her once more as that hated voice echoed in his mind…

_"…to know that it's me she calls for…"_

…and for a moment his doubt flared.

"Because he came to Atlantis for _me!_" she cried, turning to him again with a painful expression on her face. "And all that befell there, all that has happened since, he does in _my_ name."

**

_The wind blowing across the edge of the Tower as she stood and watched the creature falling out of sight, felt the fading of the aberrant hiss from her mind, stung her eyes and made breathing difficult. It was a metaphor for the painful act she had just committed – even if it were not the true Michael she murdered._

…_I know you are here… …show yourself…_

_"Teyla, come away from the edge," Kanaan said softly from behind her. She felt his arms come around her, almost capitulated to the warmth of them in her despair, but anger became louder at his touch and she pushed at him savagely._

_"Let go of me!" She gave her anger voice and yelled into the wind. He had to let her go, or both of them would likely fall – though in that moment she would have welcomed it – perhaps __**that**__ would have forced Michael's hand to revealing himself if nothing else. "How could you be so STUPI—?"_

_"Kanaan, Teyla, this is Lorne, come in please!" Major Lorne's voice sounding desperately in her ear cut off her angry revelation._

_"Go ahead, Major," she said, still yelling, but this time only because of the wind._

_"Get out of there!" Lorne cried, "A Wraith Hive and two Wraith cruisers just entered the upper atmosphere. There are hundreds of Darts currently—"_

…_at last…_

_She began to hear the whine of a Dart, but it was too dark, and the gathering storm too fierce for her to see in which direction it came. Still she turned one way and then the other, fighting once more against Kanaan who tried to pull her back inside the tower, until the tingling heat swept over her, and for a second there was blankness._

_Her balance upset, she fell heavily to one knee, giving a small cry as the Hive Dart Bay coalesced around her… and the sight of booted feet came to a halt in front of her._

_Even before she raised her eyes to meet those of the owner of the feet, she felt him strongly and welcome inside her mind._

_"Michael," she said, almost as a fervent prayer._

_"Hello, Teyla," he replied, and reached for her. His hands closed around her arms and drew her to her feet. She pulled herself free of his grasp and backed away, mostly though because she felt she should, than because she wanted to._

_"How did you—"_

_"Your people are so careless with their technology. The ship I found on the Haradian home world provided me with a wealth of information and technology… and part of the key to infiltrating this base," he answered calmly, tilting his head as he looked at her. "You need not worry. So long as they cooperate, your friends are safe. You have my word."_

_"They will not allow you to take me, you __**know**__ that," she told him, straightening up to look him full in the eye, trying to maintain her resolve against all that had happened since her return to Atlantis; all that she remembered of the one that now stood before her – her mind and heart at war._

_"They do not have a choice," he told her, matter of fact. "Did they think that by allying with the Wraith they would weaken me? They may have forced me to destroy my facilities, and abandon much of my research, but they cannot – __**they**__**cannot**__ weaken my resolve. Make no mistake, Teyla, I am as strong now as I have ever been."_

_"I do not doubt you, Michael," she took half a step toward him, stretched out a hand almost appealing to him, "but you have to understand—"_

_"No, Teyla, __**you**__ must understand… __**I**__am in control of Atlantis. As we speak my troops are moving into position, subduing the city once and for all," he told her, "preparing to deal with those who ended my life as I knew it – with their cooperation in a more fitting way than I dealt with Colonel Sheppard."_

_"__**You**__ killed him?" she asked, a mix of feelings flooding into her – relief, sorrow, and a sense of regret that she felt from Michael the most surprising of all. That regret faded almost as soon as she felt it, to be replaced with burning anger at the thought of Sheppard's hands on her. He advanced toward her as he gave his anger voice._

_"After what he did to you, how can you expect anything less?" he demanded, the menace of his challenge filling her with the fear of harm if she did not make clear her own unwillingness – that her fragile emotions had been exploited. She backed up quickly, and that action stopped him in his tracks._

_"He…" Michael tilted his head, regarding her, his anger softening, his expression becoming almost confused and innocently child-like. "He asked that I give you a message… he said to tell you… that he loved you."_

_Hurt to the point of breaking, blinding anger flooded everything she was, and though it was not directed at Michael she flew at him, growling and lashing out at him. Her fists barely made contact with him before he caught her and drew her in to him, restricting her movement, holding her tightly until her anger played itself out, and another emotion crept in to take its place…_

Teyla shook herself, forcing the memory away into the back of her mind, and looked up to meet the look of confusion in Sheppard's regard. She took a breath and said quietly, "He thought he was saving me from the cruelty I'd suffered while in Atlantis. He would not leave me there a moment longer, not even when the city was his. He received a transmission about an uprising on one of the worlds he had subdued, and left the clone he had made of my son in charge of Atlantis while he brought me with him."

"And you escaped?" Sheppard asked. She couldn't help but hear the hopeful tone in his voice.

"Not immediately," she said, "but yes – once we came here."

"The uprising was here?" Sheppard frowned again and she read confusion on his face. "I thought—"

"You must forget the truth you know from _your_ reality, John Sheppard," she explained to him. "It may not be true here."

"But… New Athos – your people – we _freed_ them from Michael," he shook his head as he answered her.

"As you tried to do here," she confirmed. "But Michael is nothing if not persistent. He just waited until Atlantis withdrew and then he returned to remind them of the benefits they had 'enjoyed' under his control."

"And they rolled over? Halling would nev—"

"Halling is dead," she told him, "Killed by the very Wraith with whom Sheppard tried to form an alliance."

Sheppard shook his head again, and she could see that he was trying to take everything in.

"So, the uprising?" he asked at last.

"Not here," she said. "Michael's Hive never reached the world on which it was taking place. He sent the second of his ships the moment he received word that New Athos was under attack by the Wraith."

"But… why? Why risk putting himself in direct conflict with the Wraith Alliance, you'll forgive me saying, for what was little more than a resource to him. There are plenty more people he can convert into his hybrids," she saw him shiver as he said the word, "without putting himself in danger to protect the Athosians – just because they're _your_ people? I mean, please, I know he's deluded about the two of you, but—"

"Because Nethaiye was _here_," she answered, interrupting as the tears she had been holding back spilled out onto her face.

"Oh God, Teyla," he reached out and gripped her shoulder. She flinched slightly before she remembered that this was not the John Sheppard she had known, and then allowed him to draw her closer, allowed herself the solace of resting her head against the warm of his chest. "I'm sorry."

"It was truly the beginning of the strength in the Wraith Alliance," she said quietly, "the day that they attacked my son."

_The danger meant nothing to her, the risk to her own life paled by the knowledge that somewhere, here, among the burning roundhouses, the flying debris and the buffeting wakes of the many Darts flying overhead – belonging to both the Wraith and to Michael – her son lay helpless and under threat._

_They had tried to stop her from leaving the transport ship, but she had been a tigress against any and all that stood in the way, even knowing they merely obeyed Michael's command to keep her safe until he returned._

_Dodging to the left she narrowly avoided a falling, flaming log that had once been the support of one of the larger roundhouses. Had she not thrown herself to the ground and rolled her evasive action would have taken her right into the path of a culling beam, but roll she did, and as she came up to her knees, looking around to find a safe path through the carnage toward the centre of the village, a figure appeared on the edge of her vision._

_"Teyla!" the figure called her name, and she turned in time to see that the figure had in its arms a small wrapped bundle._

Again she shook away the memory and, looking up at Sheppard, she said, "They decimated the settlement, there was little of it left by the time the battle was at an end and the Wraith withdrew. Michael's forces remained, for a time, no doubt either combing the debris for signs of my son, or looking for me, but—"

She broke off, and pulled away from him to look skywards.

"What is it?" he asked, and she heard the unease in his voice. No doubt he thought she sensed the Wraith.

"Gather your things," she told him, nodding back into the ruined shelter. "That is our ship. We must leave."

**

Sheppard sat awkwardly in the co-pilot's seat of the Jumper as the ship took them into orbit. He wanted to know more; wanted to understand the situation in this galaxy; to know how he might find an advantage in the conflicts that so obviously existed. From what she'd said to him so far – and since the arrival of the Jumper she'd refused to be drawn into further discussion on the subject – Teyla was the leader of the scattered forces that provided resistance to both the Wraith _and _to Michael's forces. From her ship she led hit and run operations against them and tried to free as many of the human settlements of the Pegasus galaxy from both their thrall. Little wonder then that she was as hard as she seemed to have become. She could ill afford to entertain her softer side.

They cloaked as they broke orbit, and seemed to be heading toward one of New Athos' smaller moons. When he could not sit in silence any more, as the growing discomfort he had been feeling the last few minutes became more than he could ignore, he said, "So let me get this straight… Michael has Todd's queen. Todd is the leader of the Wraith Alliance and you—"

"And I will answer your questions once we reach the Daedalus," she told him, her words overlapping his.

"Daedalus!" he yelped in surprise. A thrill of hope began to stir inside him. "You have the Daedalus?"

"It is the only way that I have managed to stay one step ahead of the Alliance," she said.

"And keep clear of Michael," he added.

"Yes," she said, breathing out as she said the word.

"But if you have the Daedalus we can—"

"We can discuss our courses of action once we reach the ship, John, please," she shook her head as she looked at him, "I must concentrate to make sure that it is safe to decloak the ships in order to go aboard."

Sheppard blinked, and then realised, somewhat belatedly, that all the time he had been chattering on at her, Teyla had been attempting to reach out and detect the presence of others, Wraith or Hybrid both. He gave her an embarrassed, apologetic look, and was rewarded by a faint smile.

After several tense and silent moments she breathed out again, and nodded to her pilot.

"I sense nothing," she said. "Hail the Daedalus and advise Marks that we are ready to come aboard."

"What about Caldwell?" Sheppard asked.

"I am sorry, John," she shook her head as she told him. "Steven was one of the first of our casualties. He insisted on taking a more active role in our battles with the Wraith; with Michael, and he—"

She broke off and shook her head. Sheppard nodded his understanding, then gasped softly as, in front of them, the Daedalus decloaked. He had never seen a more welcome sight.

**

The medic moved away after giving him another injection, allowing Sheppard to turn his attention to the food in front of him. He hadn't realised how hungry he was until he'd caught sight of it, taken in its scent, but the hungry churning in his belly had turned to pain and so Teyla had sent for more of the counter-serum.

"Tell me about this… Wraith Alliance," he asked, beginning a full frontal attack on the steaming bowl of soup in front of him.

"What is there to tell?" Teyla shrugged slightly as she sat down opposite him after waving the medic away from tending to her own injuries. "Following the rise of Michael's army, Todd contacted Atlantis to propose an alliance against him. Sheppard agreed to a meeting, but while the meeting was taking place, a second Wraith faction attacked the planet where their meeting was taking place. I still do not believe, as many do, that Todd was innocent in that attack, because it was in subduing that Hive that he began the formation of the Alliance. Two Hives became three, then six… then before we knew it they were a strength in the galaxy in true rivalry and opposition to Michael and it was the humans that got caught in the crossfire."

"If that's true," Sheppard paused in eating his soup both to reach for a hunk of bread, and to look up at Teyla as she told the tale, "then how come Michael's still as strong a force as he is? I'd have thought, faced with the kind of Alliance you're talking about – and with the damage you guys have got to be doing with your hit and run attacks – that he'd be weakening by now."

"We aren't as effective as we could be," Zelenka said, coming to join the two of them at the table, his own bread and cheese meal held tightly in his hand. "Even _with_ Teyla's efforts, the resistance is too scattered to be more than a minor skin irritation to him. Each cell viciously guards their independence – it's hard to get them to cooperate."

Sheppard heard a great deal of bitterness in the Czech scientist's voice, and he looked from Teyla, who was watching the man with a certain degree of gentleness in her eyes, to the scientist himself.

"I'm missing something," Sheppard said.

"Radek used to be a part of Lorne's group on New Lantea," Teyla said, turning her attention back to Sheppard. "He's one of the few that has always believed that unless we unite, we'll never push back against those that would harm us."

"Perhaps a product of where I come from," Zelenka said quietly, reaching to briefly pat Teyla's hand. "But she's right. I tried to persuade them to leave New Lantea and join up with other like-minded people I was sure they'd find in the galaxy, but they weren't interested… at least some of them, so—"

"What he means," Teyla said harshly, "is that Kanaan wouldn't hear of it. It is all right, Radek, you do not need to try and spare my feelings."

"I only—"

She shook her head, cutting him off again, before she told Sheppard, "Anyway, he put his courage where his words once dwelled and set out, a Jumper pilot and himself, until he found a place where he could be of use in organising a resistance cell – and that is where _I_ found him."

"I've never been so pleased to see someone in my life," Zelenka said, chuckling slightly. "And when I found out that she had the Daedalus…"

"Radek keeps me reminded that we _do_ need to unite, to gather our strength and to use that strength against the terrible things that happen in our galaxy." Teyla said. She sounded slightly embarrassed.

"You know," Sheppard couldn't resist teasing, "If you two want me to leave you alone for a while, I—"

Zelenka yelped, and almost dropped his food in his haste to disassociate himself with Sheppard's comment. He only appeared to relax when Teyla started to chuckle lightly.

"Thank you for the offer, John," she said, an eyebrow cocked, "but it will not be necessary."

"Right," he said, unable to shake the curiosity he felt at Zelenka's reaction. He tried to set himself a mental reminder to ask the man about it at another time. "So… this Alliance – what do they have that keeps Michael at bay?"

"Numbers, to begin with," Teyla answered, "Todd has many Hives under his control. Secondly, Michael is never able to find him in a position to bring the two of them to a conflict that might shift the balance of power. Other Hives in the Alliance, yes, but never Todd's."

"And thirdly," Zelenka added, as Sheppard frowned at Teyla over the news she had just given. "Before Atlantis fell to Michael, McKay and Keller had both been working with Todd – sharing technology, ideas; sharing science. I'm almost certain that Keller and Todd were working together to find a cure for the ills Michael has released on the population of the galaxy, and before he died, I know that McKay was having a very interesting debate with the Wraith on the operation of the Stargates – of wormholes and subspace… they were set on improving the FTL drives of both races, creating the possibility of a new form of travel."

Hope flared inside of Sheppard.

"The Hoffan Virus?" he asked. "Hybridisation?"

"Perhaps," Teyla said softly, and then as if she knew where his mind was heading added, "but John… he is _Wraith_. He cannot be trusted. He cannot help you."

Sheppard shook his head and said, "Much as I hate to argue with you, Teyla, Todd may be the _only_ hope I have, both of avoiding becoming one of Michael's creatures, and in finding a way back to my own universe." Teyla sighed, but did not interrupt him, so he continued, "There may be things that he and your McKay discussed that could help _my_ McKay figure out a way back."

"But your friends are still prisoners in Atlantis," Teyla pointed out softly, "and while we may have the Daedalus at our disposal, we do not have the strength of arms to take on the city's defences and rescue them. If I have learned one thing over the years, John, it is to be realistic."

"No, no, no," Zelenka argued, setting down his last hunk of bread and spreading his fingers to stop Sheppard from answering Teyla. "Sooner or later, Michael is going to have to go back to Atlantis, which will mean that if Lorne and the others are ready, they can go into the city and get McKay and Ronon out."

Teyla shook her head, "It is too much of a risk, Radek. Each time they ghost one of his ships entering Atlantis, they risk revealing themselves, and the resistance cell on New Lantea."

"I really think this is worth the risk," Zelenka said, talking to Teyla as though he had forgotten Sheppard existed.

He looked between the two of them, wondering at Radek's willingness to help, worrying at Teyla's resistance and, with it all, his head beginning to ache from all the differences and vague similarities that existed here. His body too had started to ache, and he worried that it meant the medicine they'd given him wasn't working as well as it should be. He couldn't help but pick up a spoon, fading out the argument frantically going back and forth between Teyla and Zelenka, to look at his reflection in its curved surface, examining his face for signs of bulging veins, or the forming of facial marks. Of course he found none, though he did look pale and there were darkening bags beneath his eyes.

It took him a moment or two to realise that it had fallen silent around him, and when he raised his eyes from examining his reflection in the spoon, as distorted as it was, he saw both of the others were looking at him curiously. He shrugged in response to their unspoken question.

"I have agreed to allow Radek to contact Lorne," Teyla told him. "If he can free the others, we can arrange a rendezvous. We can talk with McKay and see if he believes it is possible that Todd's knowledge can help you get back to your own world, and if indeed there is anything he can do to help counter Michael's retrovirus."

"Thank you," Sheppard said, and reached out a shaking hand to grip hers on the table top, genuinely appreciative.

She nodded in response, and then added, "In the meantime, John, you should rest. You will need all of your strength if you are to fight this."

**

Her hand shook as she lifted the syringe full of saline to irrigate the wound before she bound it. She did not know why he insisted she do this. Michael healed at twice the rate of any of them, and could as easily have cared for himself as she could.

Keller felt his eyes on her, watching her, felt their inherent judgement, the menace and threat they carried hanging heavy in the air. Her hand trembled again and the syringe began to slip from her fingers.

The grip of his other hand closed around her wrist, vicelike, unyielding.

"You seem somewhat distracted, Doctor," he said coldly.

"No, I—" she started to answer.

"Or perhaps it is the lingering effects of the stunner they used on you," he added, seeming as though he had been struck by the sympathetic thought. She knew better. Michael had not one sympathetic chromosome in his entire genetic makeup.

"You," she said, trying to pull her wrist from his grasp even as he took the loaded syringe from its precarious balance in her fingers. "All this… it's—"

"Yes?" he tilted his head, his eyes like talons that pinned her in place.

"It's wrong," she dared. "What you did to Sheppard – both of them, it's—"

"Do not try to take the moral high ground with me, Doctor Keller," he said, and though his voice was clipped, it held a note of amusement, not anger. She found this more disturbing. It was probably more dangerous. "We both remember who began this. Beside, Sheppard was right – both of them."

He echoed her words with an arched eyebrow, letting go of her wrist and beginning the process of irrigating the long scratches that ran from the inside of his wrist to his elbow.

"What do you mean?" she asked in spite of her own desire to leave the bridge now that he was caring for himself. Instead she was caught. He nodded to the salve on top of the medical kit and the bandages beside it.

"That argument is becoming… stale… pointless now. What's done is done and we must all learn to live with the consequences," he answered.

"What, so you're to become vengeance personified?" she snapped, picking up the salve and waiting while he finished with the irrigation before she began to apply the thick, greenish white paste with a wooden spatula along the length of the scratches. "Bending and twisting everyone and everything in the galaxy to your plan; to your will; murdering those who won't comply – or worse than that—"

"Watch your tone!" his anger flared, and as he raised his voice, and his free hand, in her direction, she took a hurried step away. The wooden spatula clattered to the floor between them. "You would do well to remember your place."

"You _took_ me from my place because you wanted to punish your little – what is he to you – your son? Your favoured clone? What?" She backed up another step as she challenged him.

"Why would I wish to punish him?" he frowned, curiosity drowning the anger that had seized him moments before.

"Why do you do anything?" she countered. "If he's stepped a toe outside of your careful scheme, of course you'd punish him. You—"

"We're receiving a message from Atlantis," one of the hybrids interrupted.

"The dressings, Doctor," Michael ordered, then turning to the screen on the bridge said, "Let me see it."

As the screen came to life, resolved into the worried looking face of Nethaiye looking back at them, Keller picked up the bandage and began to dress the scratch wound on Michael's arm. She tried not to look at Nethaiye, not to look at anything but what she was doing. Still, her ears could not shut out the sound of his voice.

"_I trust everythi—_" Nethaiye began.

"You did not contact me to question my success or otherwise," Michael snapped. "What went wrong?"

"_Nothing, I…"_ Nethaiye faltered, "_Everything… I have done everything that you instructed._"

"But?" Michael hissed, and quickly fastening the bandage, Keller backed away from the irritated Wraith-Human hybrid.

"_I don't understand how they could possibly ha—_"

"Are you telling me that the prisoners have escaped?" Michael rumbled, and around Keller the bridge fell silent. It was the kind of silence that preceded the breaking of a deadly storm.

"_I don't understand how, but—_"

"Yes or no?" Michael demanded.

"_The hybrid left guarding the brig was found unconscious, the cell was empty_," Nethaiye admitted at last.

"Fool!" Michael roared, but something in his tone did not entirely convince Keller that his anger was all that it should have been. She had been on the receiving end of that ire more times than she cared to count, and perhaps it was because this particular time it was not aimed her way, but the threat seemed subdued… somehow lessened. Perhaps he did have a soft spot for the clone of Teyla's son after all. "It is fortunate for you that I anticipated such an eventuality!"

"_You don't trust me_!" Nethaiye raised his voice.

"And you have proven my lack of trust founded!" Michael did not raise his voice this time, was matter of fact. "However, in this instance your incompetence does not matter. Perhaps I should even thank you."

"_What would you have me do_?" the adult version of the cloned baby looked as petulant in that instant as any child.

"Search for them."

"_But they've already left, I'm certain of—_"

"Of course they have," Michael snapped, interrupting.

"_Appearances_?" he frowned, "_Then you su—_"

"You asked what I would have you do. I would have you search," he growled a little, "Must you _question_ everything?"

Keller tried to back away, to leave the bridge unnoticed. There were many things that were bothering her about this conversation. She needed time to think; time to assess what she would do – ultimately, what risks she would be prepared to take.

"Where are you _going,_ Doctor?" Michael's voice, dripping with menace, stopped her as surely as if she had collided with him. "We have not finished our conversation."

"_Father, please_," Nethaiye said, "_Do not punish Jennifer for my mistakes_."

"Make sure you conduct a thorough search of the city," Michael ignored the plea, and Keller knew she would not be shown leniency or consideration. "Do not trouble me with your failures again."

**

Ronon paced. He hated inaction. He hated feeling helpless, but most of all, and most disturbing of all to him, he hated Kanaan. Everything about the man irritated him, and the chip the Athosian seemed to be carrying on his far too narrow shoulders grated on his very last nerve.

"Would you please stop?" McKay looked up from the computer tablet he'd been lost in for the last several hours and fixed him with an expectant glare. "Either that or spit it out!"

Ronon growled and threw up his hands. "How could she even—?"

"Try not to be too hard on Kanaan," Beckett's soft voice interrupted. "None of this has been easy for him and he's been having a hard time adjusting."

"I wouldn't imagine it's been easy on any of you," Ronon snapped, "but I don't see you or Lorne behaving like and ass."

"Aye, but—" Beckett began.

Ronon rounded on him. "But nothing. Ever since he set eyes on us he's been acting like it's our fault – like we're the ones to blame."

"He's just angry, Ronon," Beckett answered, "angry and hurt – which, when you consider what he's lost to this…"

Beckett's voice trailed off and Ronon thought he saw an uncomfortable flash of guilt cross the doctor's face.

"No more than the rest of us, Doc," Lorne said, coming quietly into the room. "We've all of us suffered."

"I disagree," Beckett said. He turned to face Lorne, and Ronon frowned as he listened to his words – and to the tension in his body language. "He's lost his home, his people… the woman he loved – she was the centre of his world, Evan."

Lorne snorted in apparent disbelief or disagreement, but Beckett went on undeterred.

"And when we gave him the retrovirus—"

Ronon shuddered. He looked from one man to the other, wondering if either of them realised just what it was they were saying – the resonance of it. He felt the nausea at his own reaction rising just a moment later when Lorne spoke.

"We did what we had to in order to survive," Lorne said. "Kanaan—"

"Just stop!" McKay interrupted the argument that was obviously brewing between the doctor and the former major. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

Ronon didn't miss the expression on McKay's face and knew that the scientist hadn't missed the bitter irony in the argument either.

"What we need to know," Ronon stepped up in support of the scientist, "is how we're going to get Sheppard out of—"

"Lorne," one of the men that Ronon had seen in what passed for the Control Room here inside the mountain had hurried in.

Ronon shook his head at _that _thought too. The Control Room was little more than cobbled together stolen and salvaged computer equipment. It barely ran, and kept technicians hurrying back and forth full time to maintain it.

The man stopped beside where Lorne and the doctor were still faced off against each other like boxers waiting for the bell.

"What is it?" Lorne asked without taking his gaze away from Beckett.

"A transmission, sir," the man answered, "on a low frequency subspace carrier wave."

A frown crossed Lorne's face and this time he looked away from the doctor to meet the eyes of the news-bringer.

"Directed at us?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." the man answered. "Audio only – from someone identifying themselves as Lieutenant Colonel—"

"Sheppard!" Ronon almost laughed.

"Where the hell from?" Lorne did not stop frowning. "Michael's ship?"

The man shook his head. "No, sir. He claims to be aboard the Daedalus."

"Daedalus," Beckett jumped, and Ronon thought he looked as though he'd been bitten, "but that means—"

"Teyla," Lorne finished. He nodded curtly to the messenger, a non-verbal instruction to lead them to the Control Room.

Ronon couldn't help but exchange a grin with McKay as the scientist, and then the doctor, moved to follow.

As Beckett moved past Lorne, the former marine caught his arm and, looking the man square in the eye, said, "At least Kanaan is still alive."

**

Since losing Atlantis, very little moved Jennifer Keller to tears. However, exhausted, her head still on fire from the crushing mental assault she had suffered from Michael, trembling with the effort of holding herself up beneath the weight of repression and hopelessness, she curled herself into a tight, protective ball and wept until her throat was sore and her chest ached with the effort of breathing against the sobs.

She had never seen him so fanatical; so fervent in his resolve. Not since he first came to Atlantis had he displayed such ruthlessness and cruelty – and she had born the brunt of it as he pushed against every pointless measure of resistance she had tried to throw in the way of his search through her mind.

A new rush of anguish gripped her, and as if it hurt her physically, she rolled away from the wall and uncurling, became wracked with sobs once more.

"Ronon!"

She had been unable to keep the truth from Michael; unable, in the last instant, to redeem herself where she had failed before, and safeguard the man she had loved…

_The grip of his mind in hers momentarily weakened as she recalled the warmth of Ronon's arms around her; the way his kisses had left her warmed and cherished. As she had treated the other for his injuries, even though she knew he was not hers, would never be hers, the feelings had rekindled inside her, as had the loyalty of a lover and—_

_"You __**dare**__ to try lying to me!" Michael's voice was almost imploring her to contradict him, though he gave her not a moment to answer. "You try to convince me that your intentions were innocent and all the time you were plotting behind my back!"_

_-back- -back- -back-_

_"Michael, no, I—" She backed up in panic, but not fast enough to avoid the back of his hand that sent her flying across the laboratory._

_"Do not compound your lies!" he raged at her, pacing as though what she had done caused him great anxiety, but it was __**her**__ anxiety that peaked in the moments following._

_Two of Michael's hybrids appeared in the doorway and, spinning to face them, he ordered, "Escort the doctor to her quarters and ensure she remains there." He turned to her then, his eyes and his voice cold as he added, "You leave me little choice but to consider carefully whether you have outlived your usefulness to me, Doctor."_

…She had to do something, no matter the risk, no matter what happened to her. She had to make sure that Michael's plan did not come to full realisation.

She pulled herself upright once more and began to wipe her eyes; dry her face. Her fear had not diminished, only her determination had increased. She thought she had little left to lose. If she could just find a way past the hybrid guards, a way out of her quarters…

It wasn't quite the opportunity she wanted that presented itself in the next moment. The hybrids that were her guards came in and took her roughly by the arms. Her fear mounted. His soldiers only ever did such a think when the one they came for had been condemned.

"Where are we—?" she began, struggling weakly.

"He's decided," one of them said, as if it explained; as if it would answer her sickening fear.

They moved with her so quickly that her feet barely came into contact with the shadowed, misty floor of the ship. It was almost as if they worried that if they delayed they too would share her fate and they did not let go until they had propelled her into his presence again, releasing her just inside the main laboratory door. They did not leave.

Michael was standing before one of the workbenches, partly turned away from her. In his hand he held a vial containing a deep blue liquid. He had a syringe in the other, and was drawing the liquid into the syringe. Involuntarily, Jennifer took a step back.

"When we first came to Atlantis," Michael said without looking away from what he was doing, "after Teyla had… exposed my clone for what it was… when I saw the… affection the child's clone had developed for you, I believed that you would be a steadying factor."

He looked at her then, withdrawing the needle from within the vial, the syringe now filled with the deep blue serum that Keller knew better than she cared to. She took another step backwards.

"I'm certain it hasn't escaped your notice that he is… unpredictable… unstable." He gave a pause, glancing at the syringe in his hand before he said, "It was an… unfortunate result of the rapid development of his clone and unavoidable. Still," his voice picked up pace, "your influence steadied his episodes. It made you a valuable asset, Doctor, but since I now know that you have been… using your influence to subvert the child's clone, I can no longer allow it to continue. However—"

"Michael, please listen to me," she said, her eyes darting from his face to the syringe in his hand and back, "I have _never_ tried to turn Nethaiye against your purpose. Only this one time, and I still believe that those people could be—"

"Enough!" he roared at her, starting toward her, repeating, "Enough."

He nodded to the hybrids, and they stepped forward to take hold of her arms once more. She struggled with them, knowing what was coming – terrified.

"Do you think me foolish?" he growled, not requiring an answer as he reached for her sleeve. "As I said… though I cannot allow the… relationship to continue – I do have a use for you."

"No!" she struggled more frantically in the hybrids' grip as Michael tore at her sleeve and tightened a tourniquet around her arm. "Michael, no – it's not tested, we—"

"Exactly, Doctor," he said, his voice dripping with menace. "You are to be my… test subject."

She struggled so hard against the hybrids that they lifted her from the floor to remove her leverage, and still she kicked out at Michael as he stepped closer.

"For God's sake, Michael, please!" she cried out as he grabbed her arm, and held it tightly, pressing the needle into her vein.

Heedless of her struggles and her pleas, he slowly pushed the plunger… she felt the icy burn of the liquid as it entered her system. They had worked on it together in the beginning, and she knew it was designed to take effect in seconds, flooding the system with a combination of Wraith radicals, into which he'd spliced a deadly cocktail of a modified Hoffan protein, and an activated Iratus Queen RNA strand.

"If the serum cannot be integrated into the human system then it is pointless to continue production, Doctor, surely you can see that." Michael said dispassionately as he withdrew the needle. "And time runs away from us."

"Why!" The word was shrill as it left her lips, and her efforts to free herself from the hybrids' grasp redoubled. She wanted to make a grab for Michael's injured arm, hurt him, infect him with the virus coursing, even now, through her body, lodging in every one of her organs. "What possible good could you—?"

"Who better than the doctor responsible for the creation of the inoculation to analyse the data – first hand, so to speak." Michael nodded to the hybrids and with no warning they let her go. "Chart its progression… the side effects…"

She was barely a step away from him, still off balance from being so suddenly released by the hybrids, but she lurched toward him anyway. He caught her, spun her around, and twisted her arm behind her back. Then he leaned down to speak with soft menace against her cheek.

"Far more competent fighters than you, Jennifer Keller, have tried and failed."

Whatever answer she would have made died in her throat as the full effects of the serum took hold. It began as an almost explosive burning that radiated swiftly from the middle of her chest, as though acid flowed through her body. In its wake a dull and heavy aching weighed her limbs and her muscles, and she had to fight to breathe for the tightness in her chest. Her body's immune system had flared, she knew, mustering against the invading DNA.

She wasn't even aware that she'd cried out from it until Michael spoke in the same, softly urgent tones as before, almost bodily setting her before a computer as he did.

"Be sure you make careful notes, Doctor," he said. "It may help to prevent others suffering as you do now."

"You bastard!" she gasped as he held her in place. "You don't care how many suffer. You'd rather _I _died from this. You—"

"On the contrary," he argued softly. "I would rather you lived. Then I could move forward with my work without the lengthy adaptation of the serum to deal with your… Human weaknesses."

He let her go and she almost fell. She gripped the edge of the workbench to hold herself upright as he stepped, and then walked, away.

"See to it that she is not disturbed," he said, and the room fell silent but for the sound of her laboured breathing and involuntary whimpers.

She leaned heavily against the workbench, trying to still the spinning nausea that was creeping over her as her temperature began to climb. Already she could feel her heart rate had almost doubled.

This new retrovirus, contained in the serum, was in answer to the partial cure for the Hoffan infection that the Wraith scientists, under Todd's direction, had begun to develop, and once they managed, as Michael suspected they would, to develop an inoculation against the effects of the Hoffan protein, it would only be a matter of time before the queens would begin breeding new armies of Wraith that did not suffer the same weakness. This virus – through those breeding queens – would target the very building blocks of the Wraith. It was an insidious plan, but then, most of Michael's schemes were.

First though, Michael had to get the retrovirus into the human population without killing them, and judging by the clinical presentation of the excruciating symptoms she was beginning to suffer, that might prove to be beyond even Michael.

_Chart its progression… the side effects… Be sure you make careful notes, Doctor. It may help to prevent others suffering as you do._

Her hands trembled as she raised them to access the computer. If she lived… or died, and she suspected the latter would prove to be the truth, mattered little any more. She would gather no data – force him to go slowly if she could – and try to give time to the resistance to find Michael. She had to warn them of his plans, and could only hope that they would act against him decisively… but first she had to warn them of the viper they nestled at their breast.

Michael had allowed her access to a computer – an interface into the ship's systems – and the means by which she might send that warning in the hope that someone would recognise it for what it was. Fighting through the increasingly debilitating effects of the sickness spreading through her, she composed a brief subspace message. As the strength in her legs began to fail and they trembled beneath her, she pressed the command key to send what she had composed.

**

"Really, this is incredible!" McKay repeated his astonished commentary on the Puddle Jumper's adaptation for perhaps the tenth time.

"Yeah, well," Lorne replied tiredly, "as I said, without the addition of even a limited hyperdrive, the nearest planet with Gate access is months away, so before he left, Zelenka adapted the technology and added hyperdrive capacity to the two Jumpers we had at the time."

"He left?" Ronon cut in before McKay could ask the question waiting on the tip of his tongue.

"He believed we'd be more effective as a resistance force if we were organised," Kanaan answered. "He wanted to try and coordinate between the various resistance cells in the galaxy. I told him he was wasting his ti—"

"Where did he go?" McKay asked, not wanting the Athosian and the Satedan to get into another squabble.

"We don't know," Lorne answered, glancing at McKay. The scientist saw gratitude pass across Lorne's face momentarily. "To be honest, we were not even sure, before today, that he'd survived."

"How do you—" Ronon started.

"Besides the Jumper pilot, he is the only one that knew how to contact us," Lorne said, "who even knew we were there."

"Which most likely makes this a trap," Kanaan added, glaring at Ronon and McKay.

"You don't know that," Lorne snapped and shot a look Kanaan's way.

"Neither do you know that it is not!" the Athosian spat back.

"Either way, gentlemen," Beckett's soothing tones came from the rear compartment of the Jumper where, as he turned to face the doctor, McKay saw that Beckett had laid out several small syringes. "We'll know soon enough. Time for your injections."

"Injections?" McKay asked and a deep frown crossed his face.

"Aye," Beckett answered, "unfortunately, as 'incredible' as a Jumper with hyperspace capability is, shielding against the subspace radiation leaves more than a little to be desired."

"So why the injections?" McKay asked, just uncomfortable enough with the idea to feel the need to ask, even though he could hazard an educated guess as to the purpose of the inoculations.

"A little cocktail I developed," Beckett said, "to help counter the effects of the radiation more quickly."

He approached the Athosian, but Kanaan waved him away.

"I'll be fine," he said.

"Kanaan, we've been through this," Beckett said and tried again to get close to the man to administer the injection.

"I said," Kanaan caught the doctor's wrist and glared at him coldly, "I'll be fine."

"Doc," Lorne called as Beckett started to open his mouth to speak. Lorne shook his head and then offered his own arm. Beckett sighed and then moved to Lorne instead.

McKay couldn't help but glance at Ronon to see him glaring at Kanaan, the two locked in a battle of wills over this latest test of manhood.

**

Sheppard watched the HUD that showed the approach of the small craft toward the greater bulk of the Daedalus and her Fighter Bay.

"_Daedalus, this is Lorne,_" Lorne's voice over the comm. made Sheppard turn to Marks in surprise. "_We're on final approach. Request permission to come aboard._"

"Go ahead, Major," Marks answered, then raised a querying eyebrow in Sheppard's direction. "Colonel?"

"Lorne's okay?" Sheppard asked and when he received a confused expression in response, added, "In my universe, Lorne was hurt in the explosion at Michael's compound and—"

"Lorne's fine," Zelenka, who had returned to the bridge along with Teyla, explained. "He _was_ hurt, sure, but we managed to get him out before Michael's Dart hit the rubble with its culling beam."

"What about McKay – Vega?" Sheppard couldn't help but ask, pushing away a wave of dizziness that hit him without warning.

Zelenka shook his head, but it was Teyla that answered.

"Both Rodney and the captain were brought aboard Michael's cruiser. Rodney escaped during the battle with the Wraith ships, but the captain… I am sorry, John."

**

Marks looked up as the others arrived on the bridge. It was a joyous reunion that he witnessed and he let the warmth of it fill him with added strength and renewed purpose.

A light blinked suddenly on his console, beside it the words, _Incoming subspace message_, flashed briefly across his screen.

"We're re—" he started, but stopped as, even as he reached for the controls to view the message, the light extinguished and his screen went blank once more. He looked up in time to see the shadow of a hand leave the other control panel.

"What is it, Marks?" Sheppard asked him.

"I could have sworn we received a message via subspace, but…" He gestured at his console, and then looked at the others gathered around the console at the other side of the command chair.

**

Sheppard frowned, and reached up to wipe away a trickle of sweat from under his hairline before it found its way onto his face. He felt as though someone had turned up the heat on the bridge by a couple of dozen degrees, and the latest atmosphere did little to help the uncomfortable feeling that was growing in him.

"You're sure?" he asked, feeling a prickling creeping over his spine and the back of his neck.

"Young man's been sitting in that chair for too long," Beckett said with a smile. "When was the last time you had a break, lad?"

"I'm fine, Doctor, honestly," Marks answered, turning his worried expression toward Sheppard. "I know what I saw, sir, and—"

"I-It was probably just a glitch in the system," Zelenka interrupted, and turning Sheppard's way, pushed up his spectacles. "It happens all the time. We just don't have the time to keep up with the necessary repairs."

"It was no glitch, sir," Marks argued, "I saw—"

"Kevin?" Teyla's soft voice cut quietly across the growing undercurrent that had begun rumbling across the bridge. She moved forward a little, and Sheppard had to step to the side to let her pass. "You know that I trust you. You have proven yourself on many occasions, and if you say you saw that we received a message, then I believe that we received a message."

"Well, I…" Marks frowned, running a hand across his face. "Maybe I _should_ take a break. Get something to eat."

"In the meanwhile, I will have Radek investigate the memory buffer," Teyla said. "We will come to the bottom of this."

"No," Marks said, "Teyla, it's all right. I can do that when I get back from eating. You might need Zelenka for something more important."

Sheppard saw Teyla meet Marks' eyes for a moment and then she nodded. "Very well, come to me when you have discovered the answers."

She smiled then, and turned back to them all as Marks left the bridge, and her smile broadened as she saw Ronon. She held out her hands to him, and the Satedan, matching her smile, took them into his own.

Sheppard couldn't help the pang of jealousy that flared in him at the warmth of the greeting they shared, when all he had been treated to was a slap or two around the face.

"Ronon," she said and briefly touched her forehead to his, before letting him go, and moving to give a more regular greeting to McKay, holding him in a brief embrace, before she said, "Rodney, it is good to see the both of you again."

"Likewise," McKay answered, grinning slightly. "Looking good, I have to say. Freedom fighter kinda… agrees with you."

Teyla chuckled lightly and said, "It is little different to the role I have played my whole life, Rodney."

Behind the small group, Sheppard heard Kanaan snort in disbelief, before the Athosian pushed his way through, and dripping sarcasm said, "Always such sweetness, what – you have no warm greeting for the father of you son?"

Teyla bristled.

"Kanaan," she all but snarled his name. "I might have expected that you would sur—"

Deep in his gut, a stabbing pain flared and Sheppard gasped, and doubling over as though to protect against the tenderness, he made a grab for the arm rest of the command chair.

"Sheppard," McKay, as the closest, was the first to his side and grasped his elbow in support.

Sheppard tried to speak, but the stabbing pain became a gnawing that stole his breath and left him groaning instead.

"Carson, please," Teyla turned away from Kanaan, ignoring the man as she hurried to the other side of Sheppard and with McKay's help, lowered him to sitting. It helped ease the trembling weakness in his legs, and the tension in his belly, and that began to relieve the deep ache in his gut. When he opened his eyes, Carson Beckett was kneeling on the ground in front of him, a medical kit open beside him.

"Is this what I think it is, Teyla?" Beckett asked as he looked him over.

Teyla nodded.

"It is why I asked you to accompany them," she said. "I hoped, since you had been working with Michael when he began the second phase of development of his retrovirus, that you would have a greater idea of how we might counter this."

"Retrovirus?" Ronon growled, and grabbing Teyla by the shoulder spun her around to face him.

"Ronon—" Sheppard gasped, and tried to get up to stop the Satedan from taking anything out on Teyla, but Beckett pressed a hand against his shoulder.

"Sit still, John," he ordered. "The less you move about the better. I can't believe you've been walking around with this—"

"Are you telling me," Ronon glared at Teyla, "that Sheppard's been infected – that he's going to turn into one of those—"

"I am sorry, Ronon," Teyla said softly, "We got to him as quickly as we could as soon as we realised the meaning of Michael's coded messages to his facility, but he had already administered the serum before we arrived."

"What have you given him so far?" Beckett asked, "J2F, or 34C?"

Teyla shook her head, "Neither. We were able to download some of the data from one of the redundant systems in a laboratory computer we discovered during one of our raids. It provided enough information for our scientists to develop a bio-toxin that slows the effects of the retrovirus. We recently found that both of the previous formulae you mention no longer have a preventative effect."

"My god," Beckett said, "that means—"

"Yes," Teyla said, breathing out as she said the word. "Michael is further along in his research than we previously thought, but we must help John."

"I'll do what I can," Beckett said, and turning to Ronon said, "Help me get him to Sick Bay."

"No, just…" Sheppard pushed them all away, and fought his way to his feet. "Give me another dose of that… whatever the hell it is that slows this thing. There's stuff we gotta do, and I can't do it from a bed in Sick Bay.

**

"It's your research, Rodney," Zelenka said in those familiar and annoying tones that McKay was so used to hearing. "Will you argue even with yourself?"

"If the results are wrong," he said, going back over the previous few screens trying to find where he must have made the mistake in the calculations. "Yes, I'll argue with myself."

"You've been over those calculations a hundred times. There's no mistake. Even the Wraith agree—"

"Oh, so we're trusting the Wraith now, are we?" McKay snapped.

"You know what I mean," Zelenka's exasperation with him was more than abundantly clear, and the audacity of it made McKay look up from the tablet at last. "It was your idea to work with Todd, you evidently trusted him enough for that."

McKay sighed.

"I just don't see how this is possible." He gestured toward the data on the numerous screens in front of them. "I mean, yes, I've known for a long time that the Pegasus Gates, and the Milky Way Gates operate on a slightly different frequency within subspace, but to suggest some of the potentials for each Stargate to access alternate frequencies—"

"Like images in a mirror," Zelenka said, pushing up his spectacles. "You _know_ it's possible, Rodney, otherwise you wouldn't have travelled here in the first place."

"That was an _accident_, Radek," he said, throwing up his arms and pacing away. "A terrible accident caused by the close proximity of three Gates, all keyed in to the same subspace frequency and—"

"If the Stargates _couldn't_ access different frequencies in dialling it would be impossible for the Atlantis Gate to dial Earth." Zelenka pointed out to him. It was the slap upside the head that he needed when he continued, "And that's only _one_ Gate, not three."

"I need more data," he swung around and glared at Zelenka. "This isn't enough."

"It's all I have, I'm afraid," Zelenka told him sorrowfully. "All I managed to salvage from the Atlantis computers in any case."

"But if I don't have the full data, I—"

"Todd," Zelenka said.

"Excuse me?" he replied.

"You were working with Todd, trying to develop something that would improve the FTL drives. For some reason you started looking at the operation of the space Gates – using their operation to enhance hyperspace efficiency." Zelenka pushed up his spectacles again, and McKay realised how much that truly irritated him. The Czech scientist continued, "Knowing Todd, I'm sure he still has the data."

"Yeah, but is he likely to share it," McKay snapped.

"I don't know, Rodney," Zelenka answered. "Perhaps if he thought you were going to continue your research into improving the hyperdrives…"

"Well the only other possibility I have is access to the Atlantis Gate, and that's not going to happen any time soon, and in any case, it doesn't work, right?" McKay asked, and then frowning, added, "Why is that?"

Zelenka turned a horrified look his way, "What, you don't know?"

"Don't know what?" McKay asked, irritated. "Of course I don't know. If I knew I wouldn't have to ask, I—"

"You did it," Zelenka said softly. "You sabotaged the Atlantis Gate so that Michael's people couldn't follow Ronon and the others.

McKay paled, suddenly putting the pieces together. "When you say, _sabotaged_, you mean—"

"Yes, Rodney. You rigged a deliberate overload to build in the Gate and short out the buffer, the DHD, the Gate itself, everything but…"

_"Make it fast, McKay," Lorne's voice was urgent as the major threw himself to the side of the stairwell as another small group of hybrids appeared at the head of the stairs. "I don't know how long I can keep them off you."_

_"All I need is a couple of minutes," the scientist called back. It was a dangerous patch he was making, taking power from the main systems to route it without a buffer into the control desk, but he had little choice if he was going to get the DHD working and give Ronon, the others… and he hoped, himself, a way out._

_"You're not going to get those couple of minutes," Kanaan called frantically from the head of the stairs down to the Gate Room. "Make it faster!"_

_"Ronon!" Lorne called a warning to the Satedan. Rodney peeked around the side of the desk, to see the problem. Ronon was already pinned down behind the ruined Jumper by the first group of hybrids. He was holding out, but if another group reached the Gate Room, he would be cornered, with no chance of escape._

_"I see 'em!" Ronon called while he fired relentlessly into the oncoming hybrids._

_Rodney pulled back his head, and frantically began working. His mind was racing too. Even if he did manage to dial the Gate and make a stable wormhole, which he had little doubt that he could, it would still leave a problem. All the hybrids would need to do would be to get up to the Control Room, retrieve the information in the buffer and redial. He had to prevent that. He had to find some way to make sure that this was the last address the Gate would dial – ever._

_"I got it!" McKay cried suddenly, and reaching up he rapidly punched a sequence of symbols._

_"McKay, we—" Lorne started, letting off a rapid stream of fire toward the head of the stairs. There was no way they would be able to escape the way they'd planned – down the stairs and out through the corridors bordering the Gate Room._

_As if he'd read Lorne's mind, McKay called out, "Up! Get up to the Jumper Bay. I can lock him out of the bay controls. It's your only chance."_

_In the Gate Room below the wormhole rushed into existence. Ronon and the others would try to reach the Gate as planned, no matter what, and now, to stop them from being followed, McKay would have to get down to the Gate Room himself, to rig the feedback that would disable the Gate. First though, he had to give Lorne that chance to escape. He turned and ripped the back off the control computer, and tearing a small hand-held computer out of his pocket, he linked it to the circuit board. It would take him a minute or two to program the lockout, and he doubted it would hold Michael for long, but it was at least a chance. _

_"Kanaan, go!" McKay ordered the Athosian, "Go with Lorne. There's nothing more you can do here. You have to make the Jumper Bay before they can find a way past the lockout – Go!"_

_"What about—" Lorne started to argue. He still hadn't ascended a single step. _

_"I'm fine!" McKay said and started to pull the cover from one of the other control panels – to put in the final level of encryption. "Believe me, I run really fast when I'm cornered."_

_Lorne shook his head and waited for another moment, watching him as he worked with the computer tablet._

_"Come with us, McKay!" Lorne yelled as Kanaan joined him on the stairs. The Athosian began firing upward, freeing Lorne to come back to the doctor's side. McKay felt Lorne tugging at his arm._

_"No." McKay pushed him away. "The only chance you and the others have of ever defeating Michael and redeeming the city is if we can stop his easily accessing the Stargate. I have to complete an overload. Believe me, as soon as it's building I'm down those stairs and through the Gate with Ronon."_

_"You'll never get down there!" Lorne argued, pulling at McKay's arm again._

_"I'll make it!" McKay argued, pushing at Lorne once more. "I told you, I—"_

_"—run really fast when you're cornered, yeah," Lorne said sorrowfully. "McKay—"_

_"Don't make me say it again," McKay told him._

_Finally, Lorne nodded, and returned to Kanaan's side – leading the small band of resistance up the stairs toward the Jumper Bay. _

_"Any time you're ready, McKay," Ronon called up the stairs._

_"Almost there," McKay answered. "Almost there."_

_The computer in his hand bleeped once, and he ripped the wires free. He didn't even bother to replace the back panel of the desk, simply gathered his courage – or was that stupidity – in both of his hands and made a dash for the stairs down to the Gate Room._

_"Go!" he yelled at Ronon as he all but fell down the steps, losing his balance in trying to dodge the gunfire._

_"Not without—" Ronon started._

_"Go!" McKay slid into cover beside the Satedan and virtually pushed him with the added momentum of the slide. "We have to make it through the Gate. I've rigged it to overload."_

_"Everybody out!" Ronon suddenly yelled, and from their places, pinned or by choice, sheltering from the gunfire, the few members of the resistance who were leaving in support of Ronon began to make their dashes for the wormhole. They scurried like Rodents – armed rodents, McKay thought as the gunfire continued to go back and forth across the Gate Room._

_McKay and Ronon were the last to make the break._

_Ronon was running backwards, firing one way and then another as they got nearer and nearer to the Gate. McKay would never know what it was that made him turn his head, but something did and his heart found its uncomfortable way into his mouth as he saw Michael in the Control Room with a gun to Zelenka's head._

_The Czech scientist looked down into the Gate Room, an apologetic expression on his face as he began working at the console, obviously trying to undo the damage that McKay had done._

_"Oh no you don't!" McKay breathed, and stopped running for the wormhole, turning instead where he could access the small grate in the floor beside the Gate, to do what he could from there to stop Zelenka._

_"McKay!" Ronon yelled, trying to reach him, but he dodged aside, and at the same time he yelled, "I'm right behind you, Ronon, go!"_

_"You're right in __**front**__ of me," his Satedan friend corrected him._

_He shook his head, "Ronon, I have to do this. I promise you, I'm one step behind you!"_

_Turning he gave the strongest push he could against the bigger man, pushing him toward the shimmering blue-white puddle. Luck was on his side. Ronon hadn't expected it and off balance, moved with the momentum of the push, all but stumbling into the wormhole. Gate physics did the rest, whisking Ronon away to safety._

_He was left to do what he knew he must. Already he could hear the energy building up in the Gate area and feel the heat beginning to come from the ring itself. If he could just keep it building, keep Zelenka out for long enough to complete his plan._

_He leaned down and pulled up the grate, uncovering the single circuit within and quickly attached his computer._

_It was only then that he realised that no one was firing at him. As he turned to look up into the Control Room, he saw that confused hybrids were ringing the Gate Room. Yes, their weapons were pointed in his direction, but none of them were firing. He swallowed hard. That could mean only one thing…_

_He looked up into the Control Room again, and confirming his suspicion he saw that Michael was no longer at Zelenka's side. He called up to the scientist._

_"I can't let you do this, Radek!" He glanced down at his computer, and began a bitter tango of code and counter code with the Czech as they fought for supremacy of control over the Gate. "What did he promise you, Zelenka? That he'd leave you alone – let you go free?"_

_"I merely told him the truth, Doctor McKay," Michael's softly menacing voice came from some little way in front of him, where the Wraith-Human hybrid had stopped, a safe distance from the Gate. "That your little resistance is doomed from the beginning, and that if he wishes to live, he'll do as he's told."_

_"Live?" McKay gestured toward the hybrids behind Michael. "You call that living?"_

_"Disable the overload, Doctor," Michael did not answer the question, simply stated his demands._

_"I'm safe so long as I don't," McKay pointed out to Michael. "The minute I do as you say, I'm history."_

_"Not at all," Michael said. "You have value. There is a place for someone like you within my organisation."_

_"Over my dead body," McKay answered._

_Michael sighed, then shrugged, and held out his hand for a weapon from the nearest hybrid._

_"If you insist," he said quietly, but added more strongly as he raised the weapon in McKay's direction, "One last chance, Doctor McKay."_

_"I told you, I—"_

_McKay didn't get any further in his refusal of Michael's offer, and nor did Michael pull the trigger._

_Behind the scientist, the overloading Gate began to sound its death knell, but it was not dying alone. Sparking energy exploded from the chevron marker nearest to one of the primary shield generation nodes, and a finger of rosy energy leaped from the chevron empowering the shield generator, sending fingers of deadly golden-red lightning out into the Gate Room._

_Most of it grounded against the ruined Jumper, powering the remains of the ship to hover momentarily in the air, but one single stream of energy sent a fatal caress toward the creator of the Gate's demise._

_McKay jerked as the power from the Gate speared the back of his neck, and flowed through him, grounding itself in him…_

"Even after the Gate shorted, it took yo— he stubbornly held on to consciousness for long enough that Michael's people could take him to the infirmary. Doctor Keller and Doctor Beckett both worked on him for hours, but—" Zelenka broke off, shaking his head.

McKay swallowed. "So that's how he—"

"Yes. He drifted in and out of lucidity," Zelenka said, "and Michael insisted that I try and get from him the details of what he'd done, so that we could… repair the Gate but… he didn't ever say exactly what it was, and I wasn't about to push. I'd done enough."

"It wasn't your fault, Radek," McKay answered, uncharacteristically offering comfort to the other scientist. "It was what he wanted."

**

Sheppard caught sight of his reflection in the polished command boards of the Daedalus' bridge. He looked pale, and he felt as pale as he looked. The bags under his eyes had increased as his body continued to fight the encroaching retrovirus – the coming change, sapping his energy, which he struggled to maintain.

"You said you had a plan?" Ronon said, the worried frown more than clear on his face as he looked at Sheppard. "More than to just let McKay and Zelenka argue themselves blue in the face over getting us home."

Sheppard couldn't help smiling at the attempt to lighten the mood as the others assembled.

"I heard that," McKay warned Ronon, and the attempts his friends were making to keep his spirits up warmed Sheppard as he lowered himself into the command chair, unable to stand for too long.

"So what's the plan?" Lorne asked.

"Todd," Sheppard said tiredly, going on to add, "Talking with Teyla and Zelenka before you arrived, before I sent you a message, it started to become clear that it's time we contacted our old friend… see what he can do to help us."

"Are you _insane!_" Kanaan spat in Sheppard's direction. "Trust the Wraith to—"

"Listen," Sheppard said, getting to his feet. He wobbled slightly, and both Beckett and McKay reached out to steady him, but he stepped forward and ended up almost nose to nose with the belligerent Athosian. "I've just about had a bellyful of your negativity, Kanaan. No one said you had to come along with the others. No one is going to force you to join in with the plan, so for right now, you can keep your god damned opinions to yourself!"

"You're thinking of the research Todd was doing with Jennifer, aren't you?" Beckett said into the thick silence that followed Sheppard's challenge to Kanaan.

The Athosian just glared at Sheppard, both men ignoring the doctor's attempts to defuse the situation.

"You don't _know_ this universe," Kanaan growled at Sheppard. "You can't make assumptions based on what you know of your own. The Wraith—"

"Todd," Sheppard interrupted. "We were going to work together before – where's the difference now?"

"He _betrayed _you before," Kanaan pointed out harshly, "and you ended up dead for your troubles."

"Michael's doing, not Todd's," Sheppard spat.

"It was Michael's doing," Teyla moved subtly between Sheppard and Kanaan, the Athosian man moving back as she approached, "But, John, we cannot be certain that Todd was innocent in the betrayal. I told you that."

Sheppard put a hand on Teyla's shoulder, steadying himself against her a little. "I know, Teyla, but… he's a scientist, and a damn good one. He was working with Keller to directly counter some of these things that Michael's been doing and—"

"And if I might," McKay put in, "We – I mean he and my alternate – were working together on Gate technology. If we're going to get home, I _need_ to see the data we gathered together. Zelenka only has a fraction of it and—"

"That's settled then," Sheppard said, looking seriously at Teyla. "I know you have your reservations, but what harm does it do if we just contact him, put out the feelers. It could be… beneficial."

Teyla looked doubtful, "John, I am sorry, the risk is too great and—"

"Risk? From a subspace message sent via a relay station?" Sheppard asked.

"He is a scientist," she answered, quoting his own words at him. "And he is a Wraith. He would be able to trace our position."

"So send the damn message and then _move._ This _is_ a ship; we're not fixed in space." Sheppard said.

"Seriously, Teyla," McKay put in again. "I _need_ that data, and much as I'm not much enamoured at the idea of spending time with this universe's Todd – if the other differences are anything to go by…"

Sheppard couldn't miss the glance he threw Kanaan's way as he said that. It almost made him smile. If only he wasn't so tired he might have made some kind of quip. As it was he just managed, "Please… Teyla."

Teyla looked between the two of them, indecision clear in her eyes. Finally she sighed.

"Work with Kevin to prepare the message," she said. "When it is ready, then I will decide."

Sheppard nodded, and squeezed her shoulder just a little, in thanks.

**

Todd growled softly, and padded across his quarters. Even refreshed as he was from just having fed, his right shoulder still ached, the whole right side of his body on fire as it usually was at such times. Slowly he lowered himself into the comfortable seat, one that almost folded around him.

Behind him he heard movement and smiled… watching in the mirror as the figure rose from the cushioned bed, and padded toward him, her bare feet making hardly a sound on the floor.

As her hand settled on his shoulder, he reached up to draw it further forward, and turned his head to nip at the soft flesh on the inside of Alicia's wrist. She moaned softly, and slipped her other hand across the front of his chest.

"You have been working too hard," she told him softly.

"What more can I do, my little one," he asked, looking at her in the reflection from the mirror, ignoring the livid scar that graced the right side of his face, to look on her soft, human beauty. "When The Abomination harries me so."

She chuckled a little and leaned down to whisper, "Just who harries whom, I am not certain."

Tugging on the arm he still held, he eased her around him and into his lap. She frowned at him for a moment, and then clearly reading the expression on his face said, "Something has happened."

"Indeed," he purred, letting a smile cross his serious countenance. "A most… curious occurrence."

"Oh?" she said lightly, her way of encouraging him to reveal more… one of them, anyway.

"I received a message – sent via the relay station that the Lanteans used to use… from someone _claiming_ to be… John Sheppard."

Alicia gasped. "But—" she started.

"Yes. Sheppard fell to the Wraith… or to the forces of The Abomination – who knows which," Todd shrugged a little, "however, this message claims to be from Sheppard and he… knows things… things that only Sheppard would know."

"What does he want?" she asked him.

"There now, is the rub, my dear Alicia," he said quietly.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that he and his people wish to meet with the Alliance… with _me,_" Todd growled again.


	4. Act 4

**Act 4**

The rear hatch of the modified Jumper lowered far too quickly for Sheppard's taste, particularly as the small party – just himself, McKay and Ronon, in spite of Kanaan's insistence otherwise – found themselves face to face with four of the biggest Wraith warriors Sheppard thought he'd ever seen.

Immediately Ronon drew and charged his weapon, as if he meant to take them on all by himself.

"Ronon," Sheppard warned, but he got no further, for the movement of shadows distracted him from telling the volatile Satedan to lower his weapon. The shadows resolved themselves into the massive bulky form of Todd, but unlike any incarnation – and he'd seen a few – of that particular Wraith that Sheppard had ever seen. It was the livid scar that began above his right eye and stretched down to the middle of the Wraith's cheek that was the most striking. It lent the already deadly looking Wraith the impression of a mean streak a mile wide.

"John Sheppard," Todd growled. The sound of it sent ice coursing down Sheppard's back. Todd seemed none too pleased to see him. "Our… friendship ended many years ago. By what right do you dare demand my cooperation?"

"As I understand it," Sheppard said, trying to sound surer of himself than he felt, "the John Sheppard that _was_ your… friend – his _life_ ended many years ago."

The Wraith tilted his head and let out a low rumbling sound from the back of his throat. Sheppard hoped he was considering the words against whatever course of action he was planning. Sheppard's second hope followed barely a second later when another biting pain seized his gut as Michael's retrovirus fought back against the serum they'd given him aboard the Daedalus. He tried not to react; not to give anything away in front of the unfamiliar Wraith he stood before, but the cramping in his belly was so severe that he couldn't stifle the moan, nor could he resist the urge to double over, holding his hands over the painful area as if trying to protect himself.

He saw Todd frown.

"You are… sick?" the Wraith asked.

Unable to answer, Sheppard looked on helplessly as Ronon, threatening as ever, pushed his way past the Wraith drones to brandish his weapon in Todd's face. Todd did not move, save to raise a hand in a restraining gesture against reprisals by his drones.

"Look," Ronon snapped, "Sheppard had a run-in with Michael and it didn't turn out well. Some people we were talking to said you did some kind of research to make something that could counter this. So are you gonna help us, or do I have to kill you and have McKay take the data back to Beckett anyway?"

Todd was silent for a moment, staring at the Satedan with open malice in his expression, until, a moment later, he rumbled, "Well now, why didn't you say so before? If this… meeting can go some way toward thwarting that Queenless bastard's plans, perhaps we have something to discuss after all."

Todd turned to his second and ordered him to take the ship into hyperspace, and then, completely ignoring Ronon's still raised gun, he began to lead the way deeper into the Hive ship.

Sheppard felt his arms taken in support, and glanced at his friends as they led him along in Todd's wake.

"Ronon," he gasped weakly, "try not to piss him off too much, huh?"

**

Vega watched the retreating figures of the worshipper and her charge before she turned away and began pacing the chamber. She was nervous. It had been so long since she had seen any of the former Atlantis Command that she didn't know how she would feel about them any more. Todd guarded her jealously from any outside influences – any harm – at least that not of his own doing. It was rarely deliberate, and he always saw to the healing of any serious injuries, but Todd liked to play, and play hard, and Vega had the bruises to prove it.

The sound of voices drawing nearer pulled her away from the memory of the ache in her thighs, left over from last night's games. She quickly pulled the gauzy flowing robe closed over the rest of her clothing and moved to take her place at the side of the Hive Queen's Throne. The throne, however, had accommodated no Queen in many years, but was the command post for the leader of this alliance of Wraith that was, so far successfully, holding its own against The Tainted One's army; his campaign.

Since the knowledge of Colonel Sheppard's death at Michael's hands, the daydreams, the imaginings of what she would say to the colonel, should he ever discover her here among the Wraith, had long since faded to resignation of her fate to remain at Todd's side. She could think of worse fates that could befall her, and worried perhaps that one of those might now come to pass once Sheppard and the others had seen that she was here.

In all of her former daydreaming, however, she had never seen Sheppard as she did now. He was pale, almost grey, and barely able to walk for what appeared to be crippling pains.

"Sheppard!" she could not help but let out the exclamation and started to descend the steps toward where Ronon and McKay lowered him carefully to sit on the edge of one of the tiers of the dais. She barely managed to take a step before Todd caught her arm in a vicelike grip.

"I'm all right," the ailing colonel wheezed. "I'll be fine."

**

It wasn't until Sheppard had given assurances of his wellbeing that he realised who it was that he was talking to. Then he frowned at the way Todd was treating her.

_Get a grip, John,_ he admonished himself, then winced as Ronon once more stepped toward Todd.

"Get your hands off her!" Ronon snarled.

Todd chuckled in answer and drew Vega in front of him, wrapping his arms around the top of her chest.

"I said let her go!" Ronon repeated and started toward Todd and Vega.

"Ronon," Sheppard reached out a hand in Ronon's direction, stopping him. "Please…"

Sheppard looked up to where Todd stood, still holding Vega. He shuddered, wondering what kind of mind control Todd had over her that she wouldn't even try to move away. In fact, the more he watched them, the more Vega seemed to be leaning in to the Wraith's embrace.

"Captain Vega," Sheppard said, trying to sound as official as possible. "Move away from the Wraith."

"Colonel Sheppard," she answered softly, "You don't understand."

"That's an order, Captain," Sheppard said and started to struggle to get to his feet again. Beside him McKay reached out to support him. The chamber in the Hive around him began to spin and he had no choice but to lean on the man. "I said—"

"I heard what you said, John," Vega said, "but I'm afraid I don't take orders, not from you, not any more."

"You see, Sheppard," Todd purred and finally let go of Vega. "There are many things about this universe that you do not know."

Sheppard nodded, accepting that, and then gasped. "One thing I know."

He looked up as Todd came to a halt in front of him. He staggered as McKay let go and involuntarily stepped back. Unable to support himself, Sheppard would have fallen if Todd hadn't caught him. He had no choice other than to brace himself against the Wraith.

"One thing I know," he repeated, barely a whisper. "If you can't help me – I'm finished."

"Indeed, John Sheppard," Todd agreed.

The Wraith gave no warning of his intent, he said nothing else at all, he simply slammed his feeding hand against Sheppard's chest.

If the pain of Michael's retrovirus was almost more than he could bear, the searing heat from the biting touch of the Wraith's hand intensified it tenfold. He could do nothing but cry out as everything around him faded into the far depths of his awareness.

Vaguely he heard McKay and Ronon calling for him, and heard the trill of the Satedan's gun charging, before all conscious awareness faded from his mind.

**

"Sheppard!"

As the Wraith slammed his slightly curled feeding hand against his friend's chest, the Satedan echoed the scientist's cry, but leaped toward Todd with his weapon charging just as Sheppard's strength failed him and the Wraith relinquished him to the two drones that had appeared from nowhere.

Todd turned and snarled at Ronon, oblivious to the deadly nature of Ronon's weapon, which the Satedan flipped to its highest setting.

"What did you do to him?" Ronon yelled, trying to pierce the miasma of instinct that was coursing through the Wraith. Ronon jumped at the light touch of a hand on his arm.

"It's all right, Ronon," Vega said softly. "He hasn't harmed him."

Vega pressed against the strength in Ronon's arm to encourage him to lower his weapon. Ronon glanced down at the young captain. She seemed to be none the worse for having spent so many years among the Wraith. True he saw evidence of slight scarring on her face – barely perceptible to a lesser man, but to Ronon a clear signpost to belying the evidence of first impressions. His already seething, simmering temper began to spur toward boiling point once more.

"And you?" he asked, resisting the pressure of her touch against his arm. He still wasn't convinced that the Wraith didn't deserve to be shot.

"I'm all right," Vega said, her tone as insistent as her touch. "All is well."

"Ronon!"

He looked away from the earnest expression on Vega's face as McKay called his name. The Wraith drones were all but dragging Sheppard away.

"Where are they taking him?" he demanded. He grabbed Todd by the arm and shook off Vega's almost reassuring touch to thrust his gun in the Wraith's now much calmer face.

"To rest," Todd assured him. "If I am to help him at all, he will need what strength I have given him."

"Erm, hello…?" McKay sidestepped the Wraith to come to Ronon's side. The big Satedan stepped closer to the smaller man as the Wraith turned his burning, hungry eyes the scientist's way.

"Not that we're not… grateful for…" McKay stretched out his arm a little bit in parody of what Todd had evidently just given to Sheppard, "…all that, but, well… why?"

"Why?" Todd queried, his face creasing in confusion.

"Yeah, why?" McKay said. "I mean, yeah, we came here to _ask_ for your help, but didn't necessarily expect to get it – not so easily at least."

"Who said that I have yet agreed, Doctor?" Todd rumbled.

"But you…"

"I gave Sheppard the strength he needs in order to continue fighting the Abomination's insidious transformation. Call it… a show of good faith while we… commence negotiations," Todd said.

"Negotiations?" McKay parroted.

"How about I just—?" Ronon suggested, renewing his grip on his gun.

"If you did," Todd purred, holding out a hand toward Vega. Ronon frowned as she put her hand in his and allowed him to draw her to his side. "Then any chance Sheppard might have – any… cure for his hybridisation – would die with me."

Todd raised a challenging eye ridge, evidently waiting for Ronon to lower his weapon.

"Besides which," Todd continued, "if you were to fire on me now, neither you, nor Doctor McKay would make it out of this chamber alive."

"Alicia?"

The note of surprise, mingled with shocked confusion in McKay's voice drew Ronon's attention away from the Wraith, back to the woman at Todd's side, and then to the weapon she held that was aimed squarely at his chest.

"I told Colonel Sheppard," Vega answered McKay, never once taking her eyes off Ronon. "I don't take orders from Atlantis any more. Things change."

"And you do from this… piece of—" Ronon snarled.

Before Vega could answer, Todd interrupted, "I know you have little love for my kind, Runner, but there are worse fates in this galaxy than have befallen my Alicia."

Ronon bristled to hear a Wraith – any Wraith, but worse still that it was _this_ treacherous, double crossing son-of-a-bitch – referring to a human in such a manner.

"So why don't we all put away our weapons, make ourselves more comfortable, and discuss just what it is that we might be able to do for one another?" Todd finished.

**

Todd stepped away from the semi-conscious Sheppard and watched as the pronounced effect of Michael's retrovirus began to fade from the man's body.

"He is lucky," Todd observed to the hovering Satedan. "Much longer and even my counter-serum would have been ineffective."

"You mean he's cured?" McKay asked, excitedly hopeful.

"Regrettably," Todd sighed, "no."

"But—" McKay started.

"Doctor Keller and I were working to produce a genetic treatment to counter the hybridisation process, and we enjoyed some reasonable success _before_ Atlantis fell. However, it would seem that The Tainted One has made significant advances since then."

"So—"

Once again Todd interrupted McKay.

"So this treatment has succeeded in partial reversion to his fully human form and halted further integration of the artificially imposed Wraith RNA into Sheppard's chromosomal make-up."

"In English?" McKay snapped.

Todd considered the request for a moment, before he said, "he will change no further. However you will need to have your Doctor Keller investigate how to fully cure your Colonel Sheppard."

"You won't help?" McKay sounded despondent.

"I have done all that I am able," Todd said and truly felt a pang of regret, "for now at least."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the Satedan Runner asked.

"Just what I said," Todd spread his hands. "In the current circumstances I have my hands full with keeping the Abomination's forces at bay. Anything that took my attention from that task would harm my alliance and without the Wraith Alliance, this galaxy would fall."

"To Michael?" McKay stated as much as he asked.

"To… Michael, as you call him," Todd confirmed.

"Supposing we could…" Ronon stepped forward.

The Satedan sounded hesitant, but Todd recognised the overtures he was making, and understood the effort on the Runner's part. He waited patiently for the man to finish.

"Supposing we could put you in touch with the human resistance fighters against Michael's forces – what then?"

"Supposing you could do that," Todd began, meaning to tell the Satedan that it _might_ make sufficient difference to allow him to make improvements to the serum and completely cure Sheppard. However, McKay interrupted.

"Listen, Todd, don't mean to pile on the demands, but… Zelenka said that you and I – well you and my counterpart from this universe – had been working together as well, researching subspace wormholes and Gate technology," he said.

"Yes, Doctor McKay," Todd confirmed. "Quite extensively as a matter of fact."

"I wonder if I might be able to get a look at some of that data." McKay asked.

Todd shrugged. It was of little interest to him at that time. He had, as he'd told them, his hands more than full with coordinating the Alliance against The Abomination.

"By all means, Doctor McKay." He gestured toward one of the consoles at the side of the room. He turned back to face the Satedan then, tilting his head as he said, "If you can truly help me to coordinate those humans that still oppose The Tainted One, it might release sufficient of my time for me to continue to free John Sheppard from this enforced transformation, and I suspect, to assist Doctor McKay to find a way to return you all to your own universe – which I think would be for the better, don't you?"

Now that he had seen them, even had Sheppard been fully himself, fully well, it became clear to Ronon that none of them belonged in this universe. They were not equipped to deal with all of the things that were so obviously different from their own, and their presence here could do nothing but upset the precarious balance that had taken so many years to cultivate.

"Absolutely," it was McKay that answered. "The sooner we get home, the better. No offence."

"None taken," Todd nodded at the doctor, and then looked once more toward the other man, who seemed to be having some difficulty wrestling with his conscience. After a while, he asked, "Well?"

"All right," the Runner said at last. "Drop out of hyperspace and let us send a message to the resistance. I'll set up a meet and greet. It'll be up to you to convince them to work with you though… and I warn you, it's not going to be easy."

Todd tilted his head to one side and purred, "Good enough," before he turned and headed for the bridge.

**

Sheppard moaned softly. The griping pains had settled to a dull ache in his belly and his head no longer felt as though it was being ripped into tiny pieces. Gingerly he opened his eyes in time to see Ronon hurrying to his side.

"Sheppard," Ronon said softly, and took hold of his arm as Sheppard tried to sit up. The middle of his chest stung like the devil, and he remembered Todd feeding on him… _no_, he reminded himself, _not feeding…_

"Son-of-a-bitch gave me the Gift of Life," he breathed, and watched as Ronon nodded.

"He said you needed the strength to keep fighting the hybridisation," Ronon said.

"Wasn't wrong," Sheppard said, and groaned a bit as he tried to get to his feet. "I feel… weird."

"He gave you some kind of… counter-serum that he and Keller had developed.

"Great," Sheppard shook his head and leaned against Ronon until he got his balance, "So not only do I owe this Todd, but I owe him twice over."

"I shouldn't worry too much about that," McKay said, glancing round from where he was standing at a computer terminal. Sheppard turned his way and frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he questioned.

"If I'm reading this data right, I think I know what happened to bring us here, and theoretically at least, how to get back," McKay answered.

"So what are you waiting for," Ronon growled softly, "Let's do it already."

"Easy, big man, don't get so excited just yet," McKay answered, and Sheppard thought he had that tone in his voice where the good news became not bad news, but _terrible_ news, and made it an impossibility for them to do what they needed to do. He frowned, and waited for McKay to drop the bombshell.

He also knew that McKay was about to launch into lengthy explanations which would mean very little, except to point out, yet again, how intellectually superior McKay thought he was.

Sheppard sighed and asked, "So what's the problem, McKay?"

"Look," McKay came away from the computer console, to join Sheppard and Ronon. "We already know that the Stargates operate by the formation of a stable wormhole between two points in the galaxy or galaxies by way of an address extrapolated from the intercession of seven constellation addresses, including a point of origin – a stable wormhole is established and once it is, can be maintained by energy from either the originating or destination Gate… that said it's theoretically possible that it could also be affected by fluctuation in that energy from either side as well.

We also know that an outgoing wormhole can be affected by exterior effects such as electromagnetic or gravitational forces, which can cause the wormhole to miss its intended target and lock to a different Gate, so—"

"Wait a second," Sheppard interrupted, surprisingly following the mile-a-minute pace McKay always used in his scientific explanations. "We _didn't_ miss the intended Stargate. I assume you dialled Atlantis, right?"

"Good point," McKay went on, undeterred, barely even pausing for breath. Sheppard wondered how the hell he did that. McKay held up a finger, "However, even though we ended up in Atlantis, we didn't quite end up in _our_ Atlantis, so technically speaking it wasn't the target Gate."

"Wasn't the target _time_ either," Ronon rumbled from beside Sheppard.

"Also a very good point," McKay nodded. He seemed pleased that both of them were keeping up with him. "But we also know that time shift effects can be caused by outside influences too – like the solar flare that pushed Sheppard into the future."

"So what you're saying is that something… something pretty powerful acted on the formation of the wormhole to push it out of time and space alignment." Sheppard ran a hand over his forehead. This was making his head ache, "with its intended destination, I mean."

"Exactly," McKay said triumphantly.

"Well… what?" Sheppard asked, frowning. "It would have to be something pretty powerful to—"

"Open a space-time rift in subspace," McKay interrupted. "Something like… say… a naquadah generated overload from the originating end of a stable wormhole travelling in the opposite direction to the one intended by the recipient Stargate – yeah!"

Sheppard frowned. "Okay, you just lost me," he said.

"When I talked to Zelenka, when he told me how the McKay from this universe… you know…" McKay squirmed uncomfortably.

"Died?" Sheppard asked bluntly.

"Yeah, well, he was trying to give Ronon and the others time to get through the Gate away from Atlantis… Michael was coming after them… the only way he could stop that was to overload the Gate in order to disable it," McKay said, "which is what he did."

"Rodney," Sheppard said with an overly patient sigh. He didn't want to blow holes in McKay's theory. He wanted him to be right. He wanted to get home, but there was just no way that what McKay was suggesting was possible. "A naquadah explosion would have taken out the entire Gate Room."

"I'm not talking about an explosion, just an overload generated by the build-up of energy from the naquadah in the Gate, and if the majority of that energy went _into_ the event horizon," McKay said. "And judging from the fact that Zelenka said that McKay survived the overload…"

"You think that's exactly what happened," Sheppard finished the sentence.

"Yeah," McKay said, "And I'm also pretty sure that the address they were dialling at the time was M3F-227."

"Which is where _we_ were dialling _from_ to get back to Atlantis," Sheppard said.

"Of course the only way to know for sure would be to check the logs in the DHD… and for that we'd need to actually be in Atlantis," McKay said mournfully. "And even if it were the case, there's no way to recreate the original accident and use its effects to get back. The best we can hope for is that the rift in the subspace corridor between _this_ universe's Atlantis Gate and the third Gate on M3F-227 in our universe is a permanent one… and even then, we'd still have to be using the Atlantis Gate here for travel and… well…"

"Crap!" Sheppard spat, realising the full implications of what McKay was saying, "We are _so_ screwed."

**

Still catching his breath, Todd rolled languidly onto his back and drew Alicia into his arms. She ran her fingers over the muscles on his chest before she pillowed her head there, also breathless, the both of them glowing in the aftermath of their passions.

Todd growled softly, and ran his fingers through her hair, his sharp nails scraping over her scalp, teasing, enlivening her again. She nipped his chest where her lips rested.

His indrawn breath was loud in the otherwise breathless silence of his chambers, and she looked up at him with a grin.

"Have a care, my little Alicia," he told her, his voice rumbling in his chest. "Unless you wish that I test your stamina again."

She settled then and looked up at him, at the thoughtful look on his face. Usually when she saw that face, there was trouble soon afterwards.

"What is it?" she asked, almost fearful of his answer.

"It is time," he answered. "We cannot delay in sending—"

"But you said it wasn't safe anywhere else," Vega leaned up on her elbow so that she could look into his eyes. She tried not to get emotional, to panic, but… it was hard. "…that it would be safer here on the Hive."

"Given recent developments, I may have been wrong," he answered, fixing her with a tender, but firmly commanding stare.

"Sheppard and the others," Vega guessed, not without certain bitterness in her voice.

"Indeed, their presence complicates matters," he said.

"Then send them away," she demanded. "You do not want them here anyway, and now that Ronon has arranged the meeting between you and the resistance, you do not need them any—"

His hand closed around her throat, and in a smooth movement he both sat up, and pushed her down onto her back once more, looming over her as she was pinned by the throat against the bed.

"Do not seek to command me," he reminded her, and his voice was fully the powerful Wraith he had been when they first met, "you are not my queen… even if you _are_ my mate."

"I have given you—" she managed to rasp past the blockage in her throat.

"You have been loyal enough to me," he cut her off, "and for that, I allow you this position, but do not presume upon our relationship."

"Please…" she gasped, beginning to see the edges of her vision fading. "Todd…"

As if he knew exactly how long to hold her, to have her just on the point of losing consciousness, he held her firmly in place for a moment more, before letting go with his hand, though he did not move away. She took in a deep breath as he let go, reaching for him as she did, as though to assure herself of her presence – in his bed; and in his affections as she ran her hands once more down the muscles of his still heated chest. He growled softly in the pleasure of her touch.

"I don't mean to make you angry," she told him, her voice still breathy, "It's just that she—"

"I understand your affections, Alicia," he told her in the same, firm, rumbling tone, but then both his voice and his manner softened as he reached out to caress her. Beginning to move over her again, as she opened to him, he said gently, "We shall see."

**

Sheppard shifted uncomfortably on the bridge of the ship as they prepared to come out of hyperspace at the rendezvous point that Daedalus had specified for the meeting with Todd's Hive. He couldn't explain it, but he had a bad feeling; something that was nagging at the back of his mind.

"Nervous?" Todd questioned as he arrived on the bridge.

"Do I have something to be nervous about?" Sheppard countered, trying to appear stronger than he felt.

"Only if your resistance friends decide that they would fire on me instead of talking," Todd warned.

With that comment, Sheppard's heart leaped into his mouth. He knew that Teyla had no love for the Wraith, and that it was entirely possible that she _would_ use this opportunity to fracture the Wraith Alliance, and begin to take out the Wraith before turning her attention back to Michael and his army.

"Like Ronon said, it's up to you to persuade them to work with you," Sheppard answered as confidently as he could.

"Where _is_ the Runner?" Todd asked, "I would have thought—"

"He's with McKay," Sheppard said, and challenging Todd to say otherwise concerning the matter, added, "Like I asked him."

Todd opened his mouth to reply, but as the ship dropped out of hyperspace, it was instantly rocked by an explosion. Once the brightness of it faded and the screen cleared, Sheppard, as all the Wraith present on the bridge, could see the clear image of another Hive. It had been waiting for them.

**

As the image of the Hive ship came into focus on his screen, Todd rounded on Sheppard.

"What is this!" he growled and started to advance on the human.

"What? You think _I_ had something to do with this?" Sheppard asked, and Todd did not miss the panicked note of disbelief in his voice.

"You sent the message," Todd snarled.

"Ronon sent it," Sheppard reminded him, "to the _resistance_! And newsflash, Todd old friend – that's a Hive ship out there firing on you."

"It is still a remarkable coincidence," he said. Todd was not certain, but nor was he willing to give this human the benefit of any doubt that might remain in his mind. The facts were clear. Sheppard had come to him infected with The Abomination's retrovirus, his companions had persuaded the Wraith to allow them to contact what they had _said_ was the resistance forces, and now, as his Hive had emerged from hyperspace at the given coordinates, they were being fired upon – by a Wraith ship, admittedly, but that didn't mean there were Wraith aboard.

As if in confirmation of his fears, one of his lieutenants said, "It is The Abomination's Ship, Commander."

Advancing closer to Sheppard, who had nowhere left to which he could back away, Todd said angrily, "You have betrayed me, John Sheppard; lured me into a trap like that bitch queen of his!"

He grabbed Sheppard, pulling him closer and wanted to snap him like the brittle twig these humans were compared to Wraith, as the memory of that time flooded through him.

_His unease began the moment he set foot inside the hidden cloning facility, one of very few remaining to the Wraith. However, the message had been clear, and he knew if he disobeyed the order of an Elder Queen, his life among Wraith would most likely come to an ignominious end._

_The chamber was dark…and he could see no figure sitting in the chair, nor standing beside it. No one at all._

_Tentatively, he reached out with his mind…_

_-did you truly think she would choose you?- -choose you?- -you?-_

_He tensed as he felt the mind of The Abomination touch his, and finally unmasked, he felt the creature's presence behind him. He spun around to face him, raising his arm in defence as The Abomination swung at him. A knife glinted in the darkness._

_"You sent the message?" He was confused. The message had been visual; he had __**seen**__ the Elder Queen._

_"I can be…" The Abomination hissed the words at him, "…very persuasive."_

_"How did you escape the Queen?" he demanded. When he had left her Hive, The Abomination had been her prisoner – on the brink of death._

_"I had help," The Abomination said mildly, and as he spoke another figure flew at Todd out of the darkness, and another blade winked at him. This time he could not bring his defences up in time, and the blade bit deep, raking down his face on the right hand side from brow to the middle of his cheek._

_"That is for all you have done," the figure snarled as he reeled away, already feeling the burn of the poison in the cut, "and for everything that you tried, and failed to do."_

**

The deck of the bridge rocked under Sheppard's feet again as Michael's Hive turned and fired another salvo at Todd's ship, startling the angry Wraith commander out of his remembrances.

"Todd, I swear to you, I had nothing to do with this," Sheppard said as the Wraith advanced on him.

"Then explain to me how it is that as soon as we emerge from hyperspace we are attacked by the very one we were to meet with the resistance to discuss!" Todd demanded.

"I can't," Sheppard admitted, "and I can see how you think it would be suspicious, but why would we come to you for help like this if we just intended to have Michael blow the crap out of you. It doesn't make sense and–"

"Return fire!" Todd turned away from Sheppard, apparently considering his words to have merit and Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't think he was strong enough to pit himself against an angry Wraith no matter how important it was to him to survive. He turned and stared out of the view screen at the other Hive ship.

_Come on, Teyla. Where are you?_

Silently Sheppard willed the woman who, in his own universe was one of his closest friends, to hurry up and arrive. If the Daedalus were here to shift the balance of power...

"Commander, there is another hyperspace window forming," Todd's second announced urgently.

"The resistance?" Todd threw a glance Sheppard's way.

"Thank god!" Sheppard hissed under his breath, though aloud he answered Todd, "Let's hope so."

He peered past the Wraith's shoulder to the view screen which had been brought to focus on an area of space where the tell tale blue lightning was beginning to spiral into a hyperspace window. Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar squat nose of the Daedalus emerged.

"There you see, what did I te—"

Sheppard's relief was short lived. As soon as the Daedalus came within range, she opened fire with her forward beam weapons against Todd's Hive.

"Damn it!" he hissed, and moving toward Todd's lieutenant, he demanded, "Get me an open channel to that ship!"

The Wraith looked toward his commander for confirmation and Todd made a small growl of confirmation. A moment later the Wraith nodded in Sheppard's direction.

"Teyla, this is Sheppard," he said, grabbing hold of the side of one of the Wraith consoles to steady himself as the ship rocked against another explosion. "Stand down – I repeat, stand down. You're firing on the wrong ship!"

**

There was something about the sounds of explosions, and the stable deck of the ship on which he was standing rocking beneath his feet, that invariably spurred McKay to work more quickly, more urgently. It didn't help that Ronon was so twitchy either.

"McKay," the Satedan barked in his direction, "whatever you're doing, leave it. We have to get to Sheppard. Something's gone wrong and I—"

"Not a chance," McKay answered, his hands flying over the keys of the computer. "I _need_ this data."

"I thought you said you'd figured out what happened, and what we could do to get back," Ronon snapped in answer.

"I did. I have," McKay glanced up at the Satedan, "but if the rift in the subspace corridor isn't permanent between the two Gates, I need to be able to make a plan."

"You're not going to make any kind of plan if you wind up dead!" Ronon argued. "Leave it, McKay."

Ronon began tugging on his arm, trying to pull him away from the data terminal, but he resisted; fought with everything he could.

"Ronon, wait," he pleaded, "I'm on to something here. This is important."

Ronon let go and paced away. McKay watched him for a second before he went back to his frantic review of the data. If he was reading things correctly, and he was sure that he was, then there might be a way to reprogram the Atlantis crystal so that the Gate would effectively dial itself, the feedback from the looped wormhole should then create its own rift in subspace and allow them to get back to their own time; their own galaxy.

"What's so important anyways?" Ronon asked him. He had paced back to his side and grabbed hold of him as a particularly strong explosion upset his balance and threatened to spill him to the floor.

"This is. It's incredible," McKay breathed as he read the data a second and then a third time. "I'm a genius!"

"McKay!" The sharpness in Ronon's voice drew him from his self-appreciation. He blinked. Ronon had asked a question. He looked over at him sheepishly. Ronon reminded him, "Important?"

"Yeah, right," McKay said. "According to this data, it should be possible to reprogram the control crystal to allow the Atlantis Gate to dial itself and..."

He frowned as he trailed off, suddenly wondering why that had been included, seemingly as an aside, in the research that he and Todd had been doing together and that of course led him to wonder why they had been working together at all. Subspace... Stargate technology... wormhole physics...

"Oh. My-god!" he suddenly exclaimed, a wash of fear spreading over him.

"What is it?" Ronon asked, not missing the fear and coming back to his side again from where he had paced back to the doorway. Rodney had to admit to himself that Ronon's pacing was getting to him as much as the ship still rocking under fire, and the realisation of what the data could mean. "What's wrong?"

"He was trying to improve their FTL drives using wormhole physics," McKay breathed, horrified. "I've been speculating whether such a thing was possible – arguing myself blue in the face with Zelenka actually but—"

"McKay, what are you talking about?" Ronon snapped, staggering as the deck tilted to almost forty-five degrees before the inertial dampeners could kick in. He made a grab for the nearby console to hold himself steady.

"I'm talking about Wraith with ships so fast it'd make Gate travel seem like walking!" McKay said, his voice shrill with panic. "I can't believe I wa— _He_ was so stupid as to not _see_ what Todd was doing and—"

McKay stopped when he saw the clueless, but irritated look on Ronon's face. The Satedan obviously didn't understand the implications of using Gate technology to create a massive subspace corridor through which a ship could pass at an extraordinarily fast pace due to their relative mass.

"Never mind," he said with a sigh, and started snatching up the glasslike Wraith data storage chips from the console and dropping them to the floor to grind them under foot. "Just... help me to—"

He broke off and almost jumped away when a moment later, Ronon's gun charging, and the high pitched trill of the shots Ronon fired, split the air a moment before the data chips, and the console both erupted into flames.

"Would you—" McKay protested, brushing himself down and adding in irritation, "You could have warned me!"

"You told me to help." Ronon shrugged and, grabbing him by the shoulder of his jacket, started to pull him toward the door.

**

"Teyla, this is Sheppard, respond!" Sheppard was becoming increasingly agitated as there was still no response from the Daedalus. He turned his head urgently to say hurriedly to Todd, "Something's wrong, if Teyla's not answering my hails—"

Todd growled and pushed his second-in-command away from the console as he snapped, "Move aside!"

As soon as the Wraith Commander grasped the controls he manoeuvred the ship, causing a steep pitch in order to avoid a barrage of weapons' fire. The movement of the deck sent the unsuspecting Sheppard skittering almost out of control towards the bridge forward bulkhead walls.

"Teyla!" he called out, trying one last time to raise her personally before, crawling his way back to stand before the view screen, he said, "Daedalus, this is Sheppard, anyone on board, respond," and for good measure added, "That's an order!"

At another incoming salvo, and another twisting lurch of the ship, Sheppard grabbed at the console, glancing the Wraith's way. He was in time to see McKay practically fall onto the bridge, with Ronon not far behind. He reached out to grab McKay.

"What's going on?" the scientist asked, and frowned in confusion. "Hey, isn't that the Daedalus?"

"Yes, Rodney, that's the Daedalus," Sheppard answered, growling the words as he put all the pieces together. "Seems like maybe someone aboard is not quite as _resistant_ to Michael's influence after all. Looks like Teyla's command's been compromised."

He ran his hand through his hair, his imagination filling him with all the gruesome details of what must have occurred aboard Daedalus. It was not a pretty sight and the only thing he could think was that it must have been one of the two they brought from New Lantea. In frustration he slammed his hand against the nearby console.

"Damn it!" he spat through gritted teeth.

The ship lurched again as a barrage of weapons fire made it through the defensive screen of Darts that Todd had launched, drawing Sheppard's attention back to the view screen. He watched the slow change in attitude of Michael's ship, and the way the nose of the Daedalus was swinging around, as if she was coming in for another pass. It took him a moment to realise what was going on, but when he did, his heart lurched and his stomach dropped.

"Oh crap!" he said and turning to the Wraith, called to him in warning, "Todd, they're moving in. We gotta move, get out now before they—"

"I see it!" the Wraith growled, and began wrenching the nose of the Hive around in an attempt to avoid the pincer movement. At the same time he gave orders to his bridge crew. "Fire all batteries!"

"It's not enough!" Sheppard warned, watching Michael's Darts intercept the weapons' fire, and the too slow movement of Todd's Hive in space meant that they were going to be caught between the two attacking ships. "Get us out of here! It's the only chance we've got."

"And where would you suggest we go?" the Wraith snapped.

"Anywhere, just away from h—"

"Atlantis!" McKay interrupted. Both Sheppard and Todd looked at him as though he had lost his mind. "No, seriously, think about it. It's the last place he'd expect you to go, and besides, even if he does figure it out—"

"Which is more than likely," Todd argued with him, his voice the crack of a whip across the bridge.

"Well if he does, don't they say that attack is the best form of defence?" McKay insisted.

"McKay, the city's submerged. We—"

"Just get me close enough and give me a subspace transmitter and I can take care of that," McKay said urgently.

Sheppard was just about to take up the argument against travel to Atlantis when he caught the look in McKay's eyes. He frowned, and raised a querying eyebrow at his friend, but the scientist barely shook his head.

"Guess it's worth a shot," Sheppard said at last.

"Whatever you're gonna do, better do it fast," Ronon's voice rumbled into the awkward stall into which the conversation had fallen, and he nodded toward the view screen. The two enemy ships were almost in position to cut off any possible escape route.

"Give me the coordinates!" Todd roared, and Sheppard saw McKay jump before the man hurried across the bridge toward Todd, tapping at the screen of his hand-held computer as he went.

**

Michael looked up from the console at which he was working to look at his main view screen. He smiled in grim sarcasm as he saw the attitude of the Wraith's Hive ship.

"So," he purred, "the Wraith was not so distracted by his guests, after all, that he did not notice the danger to his ship – excellent."

He returned his attention to the console and turned the ship so that his portside weapons' array was available to fire on the Hive, while his forward weapons' ports could put paid to attacks of the incoming Darts.

"Direct hit," one of his men announced. "No damage. He's pulling above the Earth ship, firing his lower forward weapons' array."

Michael's head snapped up to the view screen again. He watched with a deepening frown as the Wraith Hive fired on the Daedalus, most of its attacks dissipating harmlessly against the ship's shields. It did not take long for realisation to enter his mind.

"He's running," he announced with self-satisfied vindictiveness. "Target the ventral hyperdrive generator."

He moved his hands over the console, into the hand-grips to match the yaw of his Hive to that of the Wraith's, attempting to provide his crew with the best possible angle to make the necessary shot, but the Wraith proved cunning, and reversed his roll as he came through the two ships, glancing the Hive's starboard side fin off the topside of the Daedalus, penetrating her weakened shields, and sending the brightness of an explosion to wash out the view on the screen.

"Track it!" he ordered, his voice like a gunshot across the hushed bridge, but barely a glance toward the hybrid operating the console where sensor telemetry would guide them. The order was unnecessary, as his vicelike grip on the minds of his soldiers was unwavering, but he had come to realise that they were the more acquiescent if verbal orders were also given. "Continue firing."

As the view on the screen became clear once more, he saw the Daedalus limping into a turn and firing her Asgard weapons toward the escaping Hive ship, but even with the both of them targeting the fleeing ship, it was already too late. The tell-tale spider web of the transition between space and subspace was becoming visible and within seconds the ship would be gone.

**

Todd knew the moment The Abomination realised that he was attempting to make the jump to hyperspace he would begin to target his hyperdrive generators, and so with a sudden flick of both mind and wrist against the controls he sent the Hive into a reversed spin as he came through the narrowing gap between the enemy Hive and the Resistance's ship. It was a risky move as it brought the fin of his Hive into contact with the Daedalus' shields, and could tear that section of the ship in two.

The impact sent the human scientist sprawling against his console, the small computer he held bounced out of his hands and across the bridge floor. The other humans made sudden, desperate grabs to latch themselves onto other stations around the bridge, and stared with frowning concern at the view of their Earth ship engulfed in the explosion caused by the impact. He had been lucky. The sharp, right fin had penetrated the shields of the enemy vessel and impacted hard against the top side of one of the arms of the ship.

His own Hive shuddered under the force of the explosion that rippled along its side and Todd felt the tingling feedback of distress through the mental contact he shared with the Hive consciousness.

"Damn it, Todd. That was _not_ what I had in mind!" Sheppard spat in his direction, clearly still worried for those aboard the Daedalus in spite of their obvious duplicity and betrayal of Sheppard and the others.

"What would you have me do?" the Wraith roared. "The moment I made my break the one you call _Michael_ would have realised we were running. He will be trying to target my ship to prevent that."

Even as he spoke the deck of the bridge bucked again as weapons' fire began bombarding the Hive.

"My peo— my friends are aboard that ship," Sheppard protested. Todd could not help but think he sounded angrier than he had a right to do so. "You could have—"

"But I didn't!" he snarled, and then turning the snarl the scientist's way, he added, "The coordinates, Doctor."

The human practically scampered to retrieve his fallen computer; to show it to him along with the star map as though the man thought he could not read human text. It surprised him when he did. All the years he had been speculating; probing his concubine's mind for clues as to the city's location and it had been virtually under his nose the whole of the time.

As if in retribution against all humans for Alicia keeping him from the truth, he fired an additional salvo at the stricken human vessel as he passed over the top of the ship, heading for the subspace window that was opening the door to his hyperspace escape.

"Todd," Sheppard growled, but he ignored the man completely.

**

It sounded as though every alarm possible was filling the air with its shrill cacophony as Teyla rushed back toward the bridge after her abortive search for Zelenka. The man was nowhere to be found, and things were coming apart.

She fell heavily against the bulkhead as the ship shook under the onslaught of another explosion. The shields hadn't held against the collision with the Wraith Hive, and now they failed to keep out the Wraith's parting shots. This could not be happening, and there could only be one explanation for it. Yet, for all that, she couldn't believe that anyone could ever have sided with him. Her orders had been clear – no quarters – they were to lure him here and then—

"Where is Radek?" she demanded as she made her way onto the bridge. She meant to say more, but when she saw Lorne, leaning over an unconscious Marks, she flew at the former Major. "I should have watched you more closely!"

She grabbed the man by the jacket and threw him away from her with such a force that the off-guard man had been caught with her follow through attack before he could regain his balance.

"Teyla," he yelped, raising his arms in self-defence.

She meant to advance, to neutralise the threat, but at the same moment that she took a step, another figure came rushing at her from the side. His body impacted hers hard, stealing her breath and taking her down to the floor of the bridge, but she rolled away before he could get her pinned, coming to her feet in a crouch facing the two men, both with terrible expressions on their faces.

"What did you do with Radek!" she demanded again.

"Teyla, he went to deal with the shield gen failure," Lorne said and his expression softened into a lighter frown and he threw out his hand toward the other man, who stood tense, ready for combat, passing a knife between one hand and the other. "Stand down, Kanaan! That's an order!"

"Go to hell!" Kanaan spat. "It's time I took care of this bitch once and for all."

Teyla growled and sprang toward him, after all this time; after all that they had shared; after everything he knew...

"How could you!" she snarled at him, catching his arm by the wrist as he swung the knife toward her, and then delivering a forearm smash to his vulnerable face.

Reeling backwards, he turned the question back on her. "You... After everything, you can ask me that?"

"It had to be," she slammed his hand against the console trying to make him lose his grip on the knife. "We had a chance, a _real_ chance to take him out of the equation! The other would _wait_!"

She saw Lorne from the corner of her eye. He was circling behind her. She tried to turn as well, before they both had the chance to corner her, as she had trapped herself into the fight with Kanaan.

**

Michael watched, his face drawing into a scowl as the fleeing Wraith Hive ship fired a full salvo against the Daedalus, and penetrated what was left of their shields and left her on fire, obviously venting atmosphere. In the next moment the Hive ship disappeared in to the hyperspace window.

Michael snarled. He turned away from the view screen and relinquished control of his station to one of his waiting hybrids, to pace across the bridge, thinking as he moved.

"Where would he go?" he hissed under his breath, turning again to watch the now empty area of space where once subspace had met standard space.

"Perhaps he just ran," offered one of his trusted lieutenants.

"No," Michael argued, "he is not the type to go running blind and with the others aboard, he would not head for any of his Alliance strongholds. _Where..._?"

For a moment he closed his eyes in a long slow blink, and realisation began to dawn like the sun over Atlantis, cold and brutal in its revealing light.

"Of course," he breathed slowly. "The one place I would not think to look."

"We're being hailed," his lieutenant informed him, cutting in on his private thoughts, and Michael swung around to face him with a deep scowl on his already frowning features. "It's Atlantis."

With a dismissive shake of his head, Michael said, "Tell Nethaiye to surface the city and order him to prepare the south pier landing pad to receive the Daedalus. He's then to transfer all available power to the city's shields. Prepare my scout ship and as soon as I'm away, set coordinates for Atlantis and make the jump to hyperspace."

"Sir?"

Michael tilted his head, and allowed his face to relax into a self satisfied expression.

"I'll be bringing the Daedalus home myself."

**

They both rushed her at once, and she spun frantically to keep both Kanaan's knife, and Lorne's reaching grasp at bay. She succeeded in knocking Lorne back for a second time, and was able to turn Kanaan's second blow aside, but not before the tip of his knife had left a long slice across her cheek. She could feel its sting, and the slow trickle of blood that began to make its way in meticulous lines down her snarling face.

Her former lover leaped at her again, even as she ducked under Lorne's next flying tackle. She punched upward as he sailed overhead, winding him, so that the ex-major landed heavily and slid across the floor of the bridge to come to a halt at the base of the command console. However, her actions had cost her the chance to avoid Kanaan and his shoulder impacted against her and drove her to her back on the floor.

She cried out, and quickly reached up to block and grasp the wrist of the hand in which he still held the knife which he was still trying to bring to bear against her and the two of them became locked in a battle of will and strength – a battle for survival.

The deck of the ship jumped beneath them as if struck by another blast of weapons' fire, or rocked by another explosion. It jarred the two of them apart momentarily, and allowed Teyla to free the hand that was trapped beneath Kanaan's knee.

Physically he was stronger than she was, had always been and it had been a constant running joke between them at the best of times, but this was not the best of times, and as angry as she was, as betrayed as she felt she used all of it to match his strength, his emotion for her turned to hatred as each of them had been touched by the mind of the one they shared in common, and yet felt so differently about.

Grappling with him, struggling there beneath him, she began to tire. The knife he held began to inch closer and closer to her face.

"Kanaan, think!" she implored him, her voice hoarse as she strained with him.

"I was through thinking when y—"

The whine of a shot fired from a stunner split the air, cutting across the sentence he was spitting, like poison into her face and he became a dead weight on top of her, held up only by the hand against which she had been straining. To throw him off was reflex, as was turning toward where Lorne was beginning to get unsteadily to his feet.

The whine of the stunner sounded again, and she felt the tingling cold of the beam pass across the top of her shoulder, striking the former major dead centre of his chest, to send him spilling back down to the flood.

This time, Teyla spun around to find herself staring into the business end of the stunner, held in an all too familiar hand.

"You!" she spat.

He tilted his head in amusement.

"Hello Teyla."

**

Sheppard paced while McKay watched the telemetry readings coming in on the console as he stood before it, giving his companions a blow-by-blow account of their journey.

"Coming within range of Atlantis in three... two..." McKay trailed off.

"McKay?" Sheppard asked, unable to keep the worried, warning tone from his voice.

"Well, Atlantis is already surfaced, she—"

"Todd, hold it!" Sheppard snapped urgently, cutting off his friend. "Turn this ship around and find some way to mask our approach."

"It is already too late for that," Todd purred, and Sheppard turned to watch, horrified as the glowing forms of several drones came streaming out of the dark of space toward them.

"Damn it!" Sheppard yelled and punched the nearest console, turning to McKay to add, "I thought you said he wouldn't work it out."

Before McKay could answer, Todd said calmly, "I knew you had underestimated The Abomination. Their drone weapons are of no consequence. I already anticipated this."

As Sheppard watched, several of Todd's Darts came streaming out of the bay directly into the path of the incoming drones; sacrificing themselves in order to save the Hive.

"I suggest you start thinking of a way to disable their shields, Doctor McKay," Todd growled and Sheppard felt the surge of the Hive as Todd sent it speeding toward Atlantis.

"Oh, of course," McKay's sarcastic reply came back, "because when it comes to crippling Atlantis, I'm the go to guy."

"McKay," Sheppard warned, watching New Lantea beginning to loom large in the view screen.

"I'm on it, all right?" the scientist answered irritably, and continued mumbling to himself, "Anyone would think it didn't take absolute genius and more than a working knowledge of the city's systems to—"

"McKay," Ronon growled, "Quit bitching about it and get to work."

McKay turned an incredulous look his way. "Bu—Ju—!"

"Any time, Doctor," Todd interjected, bringing the Hive into a geostationary orbit around the planet and sending more of his Darts streaming toward the city. "Or this is going to be a very short visit."

"Oh, ye of little faith!" McKay snapped back, turning around to fix the Wraith with triumphant expression. "All I had to do was—"

"Oh, this is _so_ not good," Sheppard cut off McKay's explanation of his brilliance, and not for the usual reason that it bored him rigid. He happened to glance at the view screen as Todd and McKay argued back and forth, and so he alone had caught sight of the Wraith Hive coming out of hyperspace, barely 5 klicks away from establishing its own orbit off their port fin. Instantly the Hive ship launched a fleet of Darts streaming toward them like angry wasps. "We've got incoming!"

**

With the shields down, the battle for Atlantis had moved to the city itself as Wraith and hybrid alike were beamed in by Dart culling beams, the hybrids in support of Nethaiye and Michael's forces already in the city, and Todd's Wraith against them.

"We've got you this far," Sheppard argued with Todd as they stood on the threshold of the Dart Bay. "All I'm asking is one lousy pilot to fly us in in one of those things. Once we're inside, before we leave, I promise you, McKay will do everything he can to make sure your people have the edge over Michael's. You have my word."

"I will?" McKay queried nervously, "'Cause the way I see it, I'm barely going to have enough time to fix the Gate, reprogram the crystal, and rig the overload again, if I'm lucky."

"Yes, Rodney, you will," Sheppard said patiently, "Because I just gave my word."

"Right," McKay said, "And like I said, when it comes to crippling Atlantis, I'm the—"

"—go to guy, that's right," Sheppard said.

"I will hold you to your word, John Sheppard," Todd rumbled, and gestured to one of the drone pilots. "Any assistance you are able, Doctor, that is all I ask."

Sheppard grabbed McKay by the arm before the scientist could argue with the Wraith, and together with Ronon, the two of them made for the centre of the walkway. Before they had even reached half way, Sheppard felt the tingling cold of the Wraith dematerialiser sweep over him, and in the next moment of awareness, one of the balconies of the city of Atlantis came into focus around him.

"Where the hell are we?" The words fell out of his mouth before he really had a chance to get his bearings.

"Control Room is just the other side of those doors," McKay answered, pointing to the doorway. Sheppard started to walk toward the doors, but stopped when they did not open. "Power, remember? Michael completely re-routed the power from the main control room when he took control of the city. We're going to have to open it manua—"

McKay stopped speaking and from behind him, Sheppard could hear the grunting and straining that had caused the scientist's silence. He turned in time to see Ronon trying to pry the door open with his fingers.

"Erm, Ronon?" Sheppard said and when the Satedan turned his head to look at him he gestured to the panel that was used to trigger the manual override. "Why not let McKay..."

The scientist was already moving to strip the panel of its cover and attach the leads from the tablet he'd retrieved from Todd's ship to the crystals inside. The door soon released with a slight sigh, allowing Ronon and Sheppard to pull them open and get inside.

"We better do what we have to do quickly," Sheppard said even as McKay began to move past him, toward the consoles. "From what we saw on Todd's Hive, Michael's people are tracking anyone that isn't theirs that come inside. It's only a matter of time before they figure out we're here and come after us."

"It's going to take a little time to get any power to these consoles, let alone anything else," McKay yelped back at him. "If they show up, you're going to have to—"

"If?" Sheppard said. He watched as McKay started frantically pulling panels from the bases and backs of desks. He turned his head to watch as Ronon descended the stairs to the floor of the Gate Room, knowing that he too should be checking their perimeter, but he was reluctant to leave McKay without backup.

"All right," McKay snapped, his irritation, Sheppard knew, fuelled by his fear. "When. Just... I need time."

Ronon came back, taking the stairs two at a time. "We'll give you as much time as we can, McKay, but from what I can gather that isn't gonna be much. How can we help?"

"You can't," McKay answered. He knelt beside one of the consoles, practically sticking his head inside it, trying to locate the power node that had been deactivated. "Just keep them off me. The minute this thing goes live, even if they hadn't found us before, they'll know where we are then."

Sheppard nodded to Ronon. "You take the Gate Room; I'll take the Jumper Bay."

"I'm on it," Ronon answered.

**

This was pure insanity and Ronon knew it. Even if McKay did manage his technical jiggery pokery it was still an outside chance that it would even work, they could end up splattered molecules across the surface of subspace – if it even had a surface. Better to go out fighting in his opinion.

There was the slightest rustle of sound from ahead, and Ronon flattened himself against the wall of the corridor, listening hard. It came again, the sounds of muffled footfalls, as though tentative creeping steps were being made toward his position. He wondered at the best course of action. Whether to make his way back to the Gate Room and warn the others, or to engage the hybrids here and now, and keep them away from his friends in that way.

In the end the decision was made for him as a second group of hybrids came unexpectedly out of an adjoining corridor. The two parties, Ronon on the one hand, and the hybrids on the other, stared at each other in surprise for barely a second, before one of the hybrids raised his weapon and took an unaimed shot at the still immobile Satedan.

Ronon drew his weapon, and almost immediately began firing back, retreating as he did so towards the Gate Room.

**

From half way up the stairs to the Jumper Bay, Sheppard easily heard Michael's forces heading their way. He quickly flattened himself against the side of the stairwell and started firing up at them before they had the chance to be the first to start raining gunfire down on them.

"Make it fast, McKay," he called down as the hybrids appeared at the head of the stairs. He continued firing up the stairs as safely as he could from what was a very precarious position. "I don't know how long I can keep them off you."

McKay looked up from amid a tangle of wires he was messing with.

"I'm almost there!" he said, grabbing one of them and making a slice into the insulation that sent sparks flying. "All I need is a couple of minutes and I'll have power to the DHD and I can start reprogramming the control crystal."

"You're not going to get those couple of minutes," Ronon called frantically, appearing at the head of the stairs down to the Gate Room. "Make it faster!"

Sheppard glanced behind him and noticed the second group of hybrids entering the Gate Room on what would be Ronon's blind side.

"Ronon!" Sheppard called a warning to the Satedan and then saw Rodney peek around the side of the desk. If Ronon did not move he would find himself pinned down. His only cover would be the ruined Jumper, and even that was vulnerable to fire from the first group of hybrids. He knew that Ronon would hold out, but if the second group made their way very far into the Gate Room, he would be cornered, and none of them would have any chance of escape.

"I see 'em!" Ronon called while he fired relentlessly into the oncoming hybrids.

**

Rodney pulled back his head, and frantically began working. His mind was racing. Even if he did manage to reprogram the control crystal, dial the Gate and make a stable wormhole, which he had little doubt that he could, it would still leave the same problem that his counterpart in this universe had experienced, and which ultimately had proven his downfall. All the hybrids would need to do would be to get up to the Control Room and redial. The only way he knew to prevent that was to create another overload in the Gate, and he had no desire to see history repeating itself. Altruistic self-sacrifice was definitely not his thing.

"I got it!" McKay cried as he managed to splice in one of the redundant cables and reroute the power to the DHD, and beyond it, to the Gate itself. Quickly he attached his computer tablet to the console and to the control crystal inside its base, and began to rapidly type on the screen, trying to keep up with the flashing symbols and encryption keys the crystal was bombarding him with. The Ancients certainly didn't like a guy messing with their stuff.

"McKay, we gotta go!" Sheppard called out to him, letting off a rapid stream of fire toward the head of the stairs.

McKay risked glancing that way, and saw that unless they moved soon, there would be no way they would be able to escape the way they'd planned – down the stairs and out through the Gate.

"Almost there," he called up to Sheppard, redoubling his efforts to get the crystal reprogrammed so that he could dial the Gate... dial Atlantis, even as Sheppard was forced to back down the stairs one at a time, firing every step of the way.

"McKay!" Ronon called from down in the Gate Room.

Suddenly, just when McKay was beginning to lose hope, his computer tablet let out a satisfying bleep.

"Yes!" he cried out, and looked up at Sheppard before reaching up to begin punching in the Atlantis Gate address. "Go! Get to the Gate Room!"

**

"We're landed."

As he came around, Lorne looked over to Kanaan as the Athosian man spoke. Shaking his head as he sat up, he said, "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you. Where are we?"

He took Kanaan's hand as he reached down to help him to his feet. In answer to Lorne, he said, "You were not to know. No one would. As to where we are, other than the brig, I have no idea. We landed some little while ago."

Lorne ran a hand over his face. "Guards?"

"None that I have been able to tell," Kanaan answered. "At least not in this immediate area."

Lorne nodded, a slight smile appearing on his face. "Seems like genius is not always all it's cracked up to be."

"What are you talking about?" Kanaan paced away from him and went to the closed door of the room in which they were locked.

Rather than explain himself, Lorne shook his head, and began searching the deck plating for the panel he was looking for. If he could cause a shorting of the power circuits enough to start a fire in the under-floor conduits, the fire safety protocols would take care of the rest.

"Give me a hand with this," he told Kanaan as he found the place at last.

**

In the Gate Room below the wormhole rushed into existence. If they went at that moment, Ronon and Sheppard could reach the Gate as planned, no matter what. All McKay had to do was to rig the feedback that would disable the Gate, and then get down to the Gate Room himself. First though, he had to deliver on the promise Sheppard had made to Todd. He turned and ripped the back off the control computer, and tearing the leads of the tablet from the control crystal, he linked the computer to the circuit board. It would take him a minute or two to program the lockout, and he doubted it would hold Michael and his forces for long, but it would at least give Todd a chance.

"Sheppard, go!" McKay yelled as he noticed the man hesitate, "Go with Ronon. There's nothing more you can do here. You have to make the Gate before those hybrids make the Gate Room – Go!"

"What about—" Sheppard started to argue. He still hadn't descended a single step.

"I'm fine!" McKay said and started to pull the cover from one of the other control panels – to put in the final level of encryption. "Heroic suicide is _your _thing, not mine. Believe me, I run really fast when I'm cornered."

The colonel shook his head and waited for another moment, watching McKay as he worked with the computer tablet. McKay could guess what was going through his head, because the longer he worked at the task, the less likely it was that he would survive or make the Gate. His words to Sheppard of the moment before took on a heavy significance, and McKay sighed under the weight of them.

"Come with me, McKay!" Sheppard yelled, and let off another burst of gunfire as the hybrids made the half way point of the stairs. Then he came to the scientist's side. McKay felt Sheppard tugging at his arm.

"No." McKay pushed him away. "You said it to Todd yourself: the only chance the people in this universe have of ever defeating Michael is if we can stop his easily accessing the Stargate. I have to complete an overload. Believe me, as soon as it's building I'm down those stairs and through the Gate with you and Ronon."

"You'll never get down there!" Sheppard argued, pulling at his arm again.

"I'll make it!" McKay argued, pushing at his friend once more. "I told you, I—"

"—run really fast when you're cornered, yeah," Sheppard said sorrowfully. "McKay—"

"Don't make me say it again," McKay told him.

Finally, Sheppard nodded, and rushed toward the stairs down to the Gate Room still firing up past McKay into the stairs that led up to the Jumper Bay, trying to give him cover from the incoming hybrids for as long as he could. McKay was touched.

For what seemed like an age, he crouched there, cowered there, entering one encryption code after another before finally the computer in his hand bleeped once, and he ripped the wires free. He didn't even bother to replace the back panel of the desk, simply gathered his courage – or was that stupidity – in both of his hands and made a dash for the stairs down to the Gate Room.

"Go!" he yelled at the others as he all but fell down the steps, losing his balance in trying to dodge the gunfire.

"Not without—" Sheppard started.

"Go!" McKay slid into cover beside them and virtually pushed Sheppard with the added momentum of the slide. "We have to make it through the Gate. I've rigged it to overload."

**

"Ronon, move!" Sheppard suddenly yelled, as if realisation of what McKay had just said had penetrated into his understanding. He pushed the Satedan, and then reached round to grab McKay and push him in front of him toward the Gate.

Sheppard was the last to make the break. He was running backwards, firing one way and then another as he got nearer and nearer to the Gate. He would never know what made McKay turn his head, but the scientist did, drawing all three of them to a halt just in front of the Gate. Sheppard turned slowly, and his heart found its uncomfortable way into his mouth as he saw Michael in the Control Room with a gun to Zelenka's head.

The Czech scientist looked down into the Gate Room, an apologetic expression on his face as he began working at the console, obviously trying to undo the damage that McKay had done.

"Oh no you don't!" McKay breathed from behind him and moved to access the small grate in the floor beside the Gate, to do what he could from there to stop Zelenka.

"McKay!" Sheppard yelled and tried to reach him and push him through the Gate, but the scientist dodged aside.

"I'm right behind you. I already sent an identification code of sorts. Not quite an IDC, but… should be good enough. You and Ronon, go!" McKay yelled.

"You're right in _front_ of me," Sheppard corrected him, but McKay shook his head.

"John, I have to do this. I promise you, I'm one step behind you!" he said.

"We go together or not at all," Sheppard snapped, and crouched beside McKay, returning fire at the hybrids that were trying to take them down. "What can I do to help?"

"Nothing, just," McKay sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "all right just make sure that no one hits this computer... or me... getting stunned is not on my agenda right now, I _have_ to make this happen."

"I hear you," Sheppard said, and clapped him on the shoulder, as he and Ronon moved to give him cover; giving him the chance to do what he knew he must. McKay leaned down and attached his computer to the single circuit that lay inside the grate he had accessed.

Already Sheppard could hear the energy building up in the Gate area and feel the heat beginning to come from the ring itself as McKay fought his cyber battle with Zelenka to keep the Czech out for long enough to complete his plan.

It was only then that he realised that no one was firing at them. As he turned to look up into the Control Room, he saw that confused hybrids were ringing the Gate Room. Yes, their weapons were pointed in their direction, but none of them were firing. He swallowed hard. That could mean only one thing…

He looked up into the Control Room again, and confirming his suspicion he saw that Michael was no longer at Zelenka's side. He called up to the scientist.

"I can't let you do this, Radek!" He glanced at McKay with his computer, and watched, for a moment the bitter tango of code and counter-code as they fought for supremacy of control over the Gate.

**

"You can't stop him, Colonel Sheppard," Michael's softly menacing voice came from some little way in front of him, where the Wraith-Human hybrid had stopped, a safe distance from the Gate. "Your little resistance was doomed from the beginning, and your attempt at escape will fail. If you wish to live, you'll do as you're told. Cooperate."

"Live?" Sheppard gestured toward the hybrids behind Michael. "You call that living?"

"I call it the same courtesy you once gave to me," Michael answered, his voice dripping with irony.

As he spoke, a second figure detached itself from the shadows beside the ruined Jumper, came out where Sheppard could see, as Teyla came to Michael's side, a Wraith blaster in her hand, pointing in his direction.

"Oh, Teyla," Sheppard said. He felt like he had been kicked in the privates as she came to a halt beside the Wraith-Human hybrid and let her free hand come to rest on his shoulder. "No."

"I am sorry, John, but given the circumstances, and given the way I feel, it was the only sensible action to take," Teyla told him softly. "It was the only way."

"It was all for show, wasn't it? You rescuing me from him? Agreeing to contact Todd? Asking for his help? You _let _him _do _this to me! What did he promise you, Teyla? That he'd leave you alone – let you go free?" Sheppard spat at her, the bitter taste of bile filling his mouth. He felt utterly betrayed – worse than that – she had been his friend. "That he'd make you his qu—"

"My son," she said softly, cutting him off.

"Disable the overload, Doctor," Michael did not comment on the exchange between Teyla and Sheppard, he simply looked beyond Sheppard to state his demands to the scientist.

"We're safe so long as I don't," McKay pointed out to Michael. "The minute I do as you say, we're history."

"Not at all," Michael said. "You have value. As my treatment of Colonel Sheppard demonstrates, there is a place for those such as you within my organisation."

"Over my dead body," McKay answered.

Michael sighed, then shrugged, and held out his hand for Teyla's weapon. She gave it to him with almost a sorrowful glance at McKay, but she gave it to him all the same.

"If you insist," Michael said quietly, but added more strongly as he raised the weapon in McKay's direction, "One last chance, Doctor McKay."

"I told you, I—"

McKay didn't get any further in his refusal of Michael's offer, and nor did Michael pull the trigger.

**

It was as she glanced at McKay before giving Michael her weapon that she noticed them, hurrying from one meagre patch of cover to the next, trying to move closer, trying to get to them before Michael could complete his capture of the others. They were too close, and as distracted as he was with McKay and Sheppard, Michael had left himself vulnerable.

Barely moving, so as not to alert any of the others to the fact that she had seen something, Teyla reached down and carefully drew her knife from the sheath on her thigh and tucked it up against her wrist with the handle head within the circle of her fist.

"One last chance, Doctor McKay," Michael said.

"I told you, I—"

Out of the shadows of his cover, Kanaan surged forward, passing the startled hybrids in a single leap and was on Michael before anyone had a chance to react – anyone but Teyla.

Without even a sound of warning to Michael she stepped into Kanaan's path, flinging her arm out in an arc in front of her, and only the sudden spray of bright red that bathed the area revealed the truth of the weapon she bore in her still outstretched hand.

"Teyla..." Kanaan gasped, and fell away from her as the first of the hybrids turned and fired at Lorne, who was following his fallen friend.

It took another moment for her to register the pain – a deep burning pain that was spreading from her belly; seeping in to her limbs and stealing her breath. She tried to take a step, and staggered a little, reaching out to clasp Michael's forearm to steady herself.

"Teyla!"

From far away she heard his voice, felt his arms close around her in support as he drew her closer to him.

"Michael," she whispered, as the pain closed in the walls of the tunnel her vision had become around her.

**

McKay had to fight to hold on to the content of his stomach as Kanaan's life blood sprayed over the space in front of the Gate and landed in splatters against each of them. Only as Kanaan fell did McKay see the bloodied knife the Athosian man held in his hand.

"Oh, God!" he exclaimed as he saw Teyla take a staggering step and all but fall against Michael. "Teyla!"

Up in the Control Room, Radek raised his hands and nodded, taking a step away from the console. McKay suspected that, like himself, Radek figured that Michael's involvement in this fight would end when Teyla fell... either that or every living thing in the vicinity of the Gate would be the target of his vengeance.

"Sheppard," McKay yelled above the sound of the blasters that even now were still firing across the Gate Room, though Lorne had long since fallen. They only added to the din of the building overload, which had accelerated even in the few seconds since Zelenka had stepped away. "We have to go! We have to go now!"

"Teyla," Sheppard murmured absently, and started to take a step toward where Michael had begun supporting Teyla, lowering her gently to the floor.

Frantically McKay leaped at Sheppard.

"She's gone!" he told the man and gave the strongest push he could toward the shimmering blue-white puddle in the middle of the Gate. "There's nothing you can do!"

Luck was on his side. Sheppard hadn't expected it and off balance, moved with the momentum of the push, all but stumbling into the wormhole. Gate physics did the rest, whisking Sheppard away to safety.

"Ronon, we gotta go!" McKay yelled coming to the big Satedan's side. "Any second now the Gate is going to—"

"You go!" Ronon yelled over the now almost deafening sound, "I'll be right behind you. I have to make sure that he—"

McKay glanced the way Ronon was looking, to watch as Michael was all but curled in what looked like anguished emotion over Teyla's limp and bleeding form. Ronon had drawn his blaster and was pointing it Michael's way.

"There's no time," McKay yelled, understanding Ronon's desire – shared it – but if they didn't go now, the Gate would complete the overload, the wormhole would collapse and all hope they had of getting home would be lost. "Go!"

Ronon glanced at the Gate, and must have realised the danger they were in, and albeit with great reluctance, turned and took the single step he needed to enter the event horizon.

Behind McKay, the overloading Gate began to sound its death knell, but it was not dying alone. Sparking energy exploded from the chevron marker nearest to one of the primary shield generation nodes, and a finger of rosy energy leaped from the chevron, empowering the shield generator, sending fingers of deadly golden-red lightning out into the Gate Room.

Most of it grounded against the ruined Jumper, powering the remains of the ship to hover momentarily in the air, but one single stream of energy sent a fatal caress toward the creator of the Gate's demise.

Almost fascinated, McKay watched the naquadah powered lightning leap from one section of the Gate Room to the next, until the deadly finger of energy sped past him, a mere breath away from his face, to ground itself in the dark shape of his tablet. The computer leaped and spun as the power from the Gate speared it and it exploded into dust.

The explosion broke McKay's inaction, and with frantic realisation of the imminent collapse of the wormhole, McKay launched himself toward it, literally leaping into its shrinking maw. As he dived toward the avenue of his escape, he turned in the air, in time to see Michael, with Teyla in his arms, engulfed in a bright beam of white light.

**

**Act 5**

"As soon as they have her stabilised enough to move, have her transferred here, to my laboratory," Michael ordered as he strode along the corridor of the Hive, already heading there himself. "Then make the jump to hyperspace."

"What about the human ship?" his lieutenant asked.

"Follow all the usual protocols," Michael instructed, his voice more clipped as he turned into the laboratory doorway, "and see to it that I remain undisturbed."

The hybrid nodded once, almost giving a small bow, and then turned to take his leave.

Even before he reached them Michael sent a metal command to the research consoles to activate them. He had done this, he had caused this change in himself and he could undo it just the same.

The consoles remained dark, refusing to obey his mental call. Michael frowned and immediately stopped walking. His head tilted to one side as first he listened, and then began to reach out with his mind.

After only a moment he said softly, and with menace, "You are getting better – to be able to block me from my own Hive... impressive. I shall have to watch you."

From the shadows at the side of the laboratory there was movement, and Nethaiye stepped out into the light. Michael tensed as he saw what Nethaiye had in his arms. He began to circle the opposite way around the laboratory as Nethaiye, waiting for the other to speak.

Nethaiye simply moved, staring down at the squirming bundle he carried, still actively blocking Michael's mental access to the Hive neural interface. After circling almost the entire laboratory he finally looked up and fixed Michael with a bitter stare.

"I have often wondered what it would feel like," he said softly. "It... is a curious sensation."

Michael took a step forward, it was a risk, but one he had to take. "Give the child to me."

Nethaiye stepped back toward one of the benches, reaching for an implement from the top of it. At the same time his voice rang out across the laboratory like a gunshot.

"No!" In his distress, Nethaiye's voice held the double tone of a Wraith. "You will _not._ Divert my purpose... father."

Michael froze as Nethaiye revealed the blade in his hand, and at the sarcasm that dripped from the clone's voice as he called him by the human appellation.

"And your purpose is what?" Michael said softly, yet uncompromising, "to harm a worthless biogenetic organism?"

"Oh, no," Nethaiye almost sang the words, and ran the tip of the blade over the wrappings covering his infant self. "The clone will always recognise its genetic origins. You programmed us that way. I _feel_ him... inside me."

Michael tilted his head, beginning to circle again around the room as Nethaiye began to move.

"I feel his strength. I feel the strands you took from our shared DNA to wrap around the template you blanked from... what... another Athosian woman?" Nethaiye challenged.

"Does it matter?" Michael asked mildly, trying to keep a hold of his irritation. He didn't have time for this. He had to access his research and find a way to undo the genetic change he had initiated in himself to eliminate the feeding process. He knew he didn't have long. Already he could feel the faltering flicker of Teyla's life within his mind.

"It matters to me!" Nethaiye snarled, his sudden anger causing Michael to take another hurried step forward, until the clone warned, "Don't!"

"What do you hope to achieve?" Michael asked him, his worry and annoyance at the situation, and at the obstacle that stood between him and his ability to save Teyla leaking into his voice. "What good could possibly come to you from destroying your genetic origin? You think it will upset me? Thwart some purpose of mine as you imagine exists... punish me?"

"She. Was. My. Woman!" Nethaiye cried out, his instability coming to the fore in that moment. Michael sighed as he continued, raving in his emotional state. "I have _so_ rarely asked you for anything and yet the... one time. The one thing... I ask of you and you destroy any hope of love I—"

"Love?" Michael snarled in response. "Spare me! Is that what she told you? Is that what you believe?" He turned away, almost dismissively, and with utter contempt said, "You are more damaged than I believed."

"Don't you turn your back to me!" Nethaiye yelled. "You killed her, and now you're going to know what it feels like too!"

Michael turned back slowly and spread his arms to either side. "What will you do, Nethaiye? Kill the baby? Go ahead. Prevent me from accessing the data that will help me to save his mother? Try. Kill me? You can't."

Michael was through indulging this one, wasting time and allowing him to play out his emotions served no purpose. There came a point when a tool outlived its usefulness; became a hindrance and it seemed that Nethaiye had reached that point. He had needed the adult DNA to perfect his hybrids and eliminate the outstanding issues that remained in the conflict between control and individuality and so had allowed the biogenetic entity he had created from the infant Nethaiye's DNA to develop to maturity in the tanks as he had previously done with the clone of Doctor Beckett. In the creation of Nethaiye he had, at first, hesitated to include the failsafe, but something had made him go back at the last moment and make the adjustment.

"All of it!" Nethaiye growled, spittle flecking his lips. "The brat, the bitch and when you've nothing left—"

Michael walked across the room, directly toward Nethaiye then, his face set in a neutral expression, but his eyes... his eyes burned with angry resolve.

"Keller became a liability," he said, his voice almost a physical presence between them. "You know that I will not, _will. Not._ Tolerate dissention."

Nethaiye raised the blade as Michael advanced, gripping it tightly in a fist that began to shake as he held it poised over the infant in his arms.

"Don't _say_ that about her! Just don't!" Nethaiye ordered.

Michael tipped his head to the side and said in a deadly and quiet tone. "Truth hurts, Nethaiye."

"I'll kill him!" he said.

"No," Michael said mildly, "because you are forgetting one thing... you're mine. I made you..."

Nethaiye's hand trembled still further, and Michael could feel him fighting the mental hold he had on him. Due to the abilities Michael had deliberately brought out in him through his breeding, and the additional manipulation he had done during Teyla's pregnancy, Nethaiye, the infant that this unstable, inferior copy of the near perfection he believed the child to be—

He stopped himself from following that line of thought. He could not allow himself that indulgence.

"Let me speculate... every part of you wants nothing more than to plunge the knife into the child's belly right now," Michael said softly, pushing against Nethaiye's mind, against the control on the hand that held the blade. "You want to gut him like a fish, and then turn the knife on me."

"Yes," Nethaiye gasped, as the knife began to turn in his hand, away from the child, away from Michael, until the tip of it hovered, trembling, dangerously close to his face.

"It's a constant source of confusion to me," he said quietly, as he gently plucked the child from Nethaiye's arms and starting to walk away, toward the stasis unit from which Nethaiye had taken the infant, "that even after having known me so long... those closest to me continue, time and again, to underestimate me."

He quickly prepared the baby and returned him to the stasis pod before turning to look at Nethaiye in something approaching curiosity, his head tilted to one side. The man was on his knees now, gripping the hilt of the knife in one hand and the wrist of his arm with the other, fighting the advance of the blade toward his eye.

"Father!" he cried, a helpless note of appeal in his voice.

"Goodbye, Nethaiye." Michael answered with a sigh.

**

Vega couldn't help but cringe when the drones forced the Czech scientist to his knees in front of Todd in the wreckage of the Gate Room. Whatever had happened in the nerve centre of Atlantis, the Gate Room and the Control Room had borne the brunt of it.

She wanted to speak out for Zelenka, to ask Todd to grant him clemency, to ask he deal gently with the mild mannered Zelenka, but she knew better than to expect to be heard in front of Todd's underlings and to try would only earn her his anger. Instead, from beside the Wraith, she fixed Zelenka with an apologetic look of sympathy. He stared back at her with a look of horrified disbelief that made her pull back behind Todd.

Todd glanced behind him and raised the ridge of his brow at Vega in question. She shook her head but knew he had noticed the exchange that passed between her and Zelenka. The Wraith's expression told her they would _speak _about it later, and she shivered, part in fear, part in anticipation.

"You see," he purred, as he turned back to Zelenka, "I am not unreasonable. Your life here could be... most rewarding and certainly... productive. There are many things here that require repairs."

Zelenka stared up at Todd with an expression of defiance in his eyes that Vega knew would only bring trouble. The scientist let out a string of words in his native language, and it was quite clear from their tone that they were meant as no compliment to the Wraith commander.

Losing patience, Todd snarled at the scientist, and drew back his feeding hand, holding it almost quivering with tension, claw-like and partly curled.

"Tell me what McKay did to the Portal!" he snarled angrily.

"I can't tell you what I don't know!" Zelenka's defiance crumbled as Todd's feeding hand flew toward him, halted barely inches from his chest by his desperate answer.

"Well he clearly did _something_," Todd half turned and pointed to what few components were recognisable still amid the dust that was the remains of a computer tablet.

"It was his plan all along to disable the Stargate," Zelenka stuttered, "But I do not know what, or how... and even if I did—"

"But you could repair it," Todd suggested.

"If I could find out what he did," Zelenka answered in the same terrified tone, "but even if I did it would do you little good without the control crystal and from the wreckage the feedback from the Gate caused to the DHD, I'd be surprised if you'd find it among the chaos the explosion left of the Control Room, and if you did, it's probably not even intact."

**

Even though he knelt behind the gurney on which they had delivered her to the laboratory, his head bowed, almost resting on its pillowed surface beside hers, Michael could barely feel Teyla's presence in his mind. Even across ten thousand light years of space the contact had been stronger than it was in that moment.

His head and his body was a mass of fire from the many desperate attempts he had made to reverse the manipulation he had performed on his own DNA in order to eliminate his need to feed. It was to no avail. Every failsafe he had built in to the action of the retrovirus by which he had excised those elements of his own genome that he no longer wished to be a part of himself held and he remained strong and true to his own design.

Privately he wept the bitter tears of irony. In acting to save himself from the actions and the wishes of the Elder Queen, he had condemned his own, Evolutionary Queen and now, in order to save _her_ he must make an arrangement with the Elder. Even before he approached her with his demands he knew what she would ask, beyond her freedom of course, it would be given that she would demand that. No, he knew she would ask from him that which she had always wanted – the T475 marker that still ran strong in his RNA – to impregnate herself with his seed.

_-Teyla, hear me- -hear me- -hear-_

_...Michael... _

_-hold- -hold- -hold- -hold fast to the strength in me- -strength in me- -my strength-_

He felt, then heard, the Queen before the hybrids he had sent to bring her to his laboratory reached the door, and quickly stood up, moved away from the gurney to meet them in the middle of the lab.

She snarled as soon as she saw him, and tried to reach out with her weakened mind to push at him to do her bidding and order the hybrids to release her.

"Silence!"

_-silence- -silence- -silence-_

His order was like a whip across the room and for a moment she staggered before drawing herself up to her full height as he approached.

"Kill me or let me go!" she demanded of him. "This captivity grows tiresome. So do your constant threats."

"As do yours," he snapped sharply and, direct in his urgency, he said, "There is a way you may earn your freedom."

The Queen narrowed her eyes, regarding him with open suspicion.

"In doing your bidding?" she questioned sarcastically. "After your tests and your torture? I think not."

Michael grasped the chain that bound the Queen's hands and pulled it harshly toward him so that she had no choice but to follow. Relentlessly he dragged her to where Teyla lay, all but lifeless, on the gurney and with the controlling chain around the Queen's neck, forced her to look at Teyla.

"The only thing standing between you and an agonising deathlessness as the next of those on whom I test the latest serum is that you can restore—"

"What makes you think your threats have any meaning to me?" she snarled, "or that I would help you even if I—"

Michael cut her off as he suddenly thrust the long needle of the syringe he held concealed in his free hand into the side of the Queen's neck.

"One chance," he snarled, a terrible biting viciousness in his voice. "All I need do is press and—"

"And risk that I might capitulate after the fact?" she struggled lightly in his grasp, "I do not think so."

"Oh, you underestimate me, _my Queen_." The bitterness did not leave his voice.

"There was a time when you said those words to me and meant them," she answered. "When you would willingly have done _my_ bidding; given to me what _I_ desired."

"Things change!" he snapped.

"Yes, they do," the Queen said, looking pointedly at Teyla.

"You _will not_ harm her," Michael warned.

"I have not agreed to your demands," she reminded him.

"Oh, but you have," he growled, "and even now are calculating just what you will demand in return."

"You already know what it is that I want," she answered and he felt the brush of her mind in his – the whisper of a touch, bearing an image, a sensation, long forgotten, and memory stirred…

_She reached for him in threat, her feeding hand a blade tipped claw, at once snarling at his audacity, yet at the same time inviting completion. He reached her first, his own feeding hand catching her palm, spinning her to pin her beneath him. Limbs tangled frantically as he fought to keep her pinned and he sank his sharp teeth into the side of her neck, latching on to her as he completed the circle and joined them, sinking deep inside. She gave a single, snarling cry and stilled beneath him: acceptance._

Michael let out a long, growling sigh.

"So be it," he said at last, obvious in his reluctance. "Restore Teyla and I will give you that which you desire."

"And freedom?" she pressed.

"And freedom," he confirmed, and slowly began to withdraw the needle from the side of her patterned neck.

For long moments the two stared at each other in open hostility before she said, "not good enough. So you think me a fool? First you give me what I wish and _then_ I will restore her."

"There isn't time," he argued, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

"There is always time," she purred, stepping closer, almost seductive in spite of the chains.

Michael pushed her away in disgust, until she stumbled and was caught by his hybrids.

"Take her. See that she is given the chance to feed and then bring her to the auxiliary laboratory." With an almost sardonic bow to the Queen, he added, "I will be with you shortly… my Queen."

**

The young Wraith had easily escaped the Human assigned as her guardian and in her boredom her steps took her wandering toward the centre of the city – where she was not supposed to be. Her sire had warned her, countless times, against approaching the ruins there and so, naturally, possessing more than was healthy a dose of her sire's rebellious nature, not to mention the curiosity of the one that birthed her, it was the only place where she longed to be.

An expression of wonder entered her entire being as she set eyes on the twisted and buckled hull of what remained of a ship. It rested like defeated prey before the still majestic ring that marked the portal.

Her footsteps guided her to the scorched stairway, leading to where she could see the light sparkling off the broken shards of glass on the balcony. That was where she wished to be. That would be where treasures and trinkets would be found.

Glancing behind her with almost every step, as though she expected her sire to come storming upon her at any moment – and she could feel him searching – she ascended the staircase. Her booted feet crunched on broken glass and sent it tumbling, with a delightful tinkling sound, to the floor of the portal's room.

The machines in the nerve centre she found at the head of the stairs were not like those of her sire's Hive. When she ran her tiny fingers over them they did not leave them tingling in response. They were dead, lifeless, uninteresting. Idly she pressed the pads of her fingers against the triangular buttons of one of those machines, momentarily enjoying the tones made by the release of residual energy. Instinctively she looked toward the portal, but when her actions elicited no response from the mighty portal, that console, too, lost interest to her. There was nowhere in this Human city that held the slightest excitement or appeal.

Sighing heavily, she began to turn to leave, but, as she did, the light glinted off something amid the broken glass, reflecting in myriad colours, calling to her. She hurried to it, a tooled piece of crystal that hummed with the mysteries of times long past in her young mind. Quickly she slipped it inside the bodice of her dress, against her skin where it would be safe, where she could warm its cold surface and it, in turn, could whisper its secrets to her.

**

The Queen turned and snarled at The Abomination as he propelled her further into the main laboratory once more; bringing her to keep her side of the bargain they had struck. She knew though that their temporary truce would soon be at an end and that the Queen she now held within her body – that she had made of his seed – would create Wraith Commanders and Drones with but a single purpose: the destruction of the Abomination. It was irony, then, that she would be the one to heal her rival, the one with whom he intended to create his opposing force.

It would only take a moment to end the threat once and for all.

_-Do not even think on it- -Do not think on it- -not think-_

She growled softly. Of course he was still within her mind. It had been necessary to allow it to achieve what she had intended.

As they came to a halt beside the gurney that held the failing young woman, she could not help the bite of jealous anger that swelled inside her, but for this woman she could have won him back, brought him to understand the error of his ways. She looked down on the figure – what had he called her – Teyla? Her head tilted to one side as she ran her eyes over the too still, barely breathing Human woman. She began to fear that she truly was not strong enough to survive even the healing of a Queen. She would have to have a care.

_=she is badly wounded – was badly hurt= =badly hurt= =hurt=_

_-saving my life- -my life- -life-_

_=admirable=_

She could not help but privately acknowledge that the woman's actions in that moment truly were those of a queen for her chosen consort. A queen must protect the one that could allow her to bring the future of her people, even as he must protect his Queen, the life of his Hive. The momentary respect she felt for the woman was uncomfortable to the Queen and her jealousy flared again when the Renegade walked to crouch behind the gurney, trailing his fingers, so obviously gentle, through the woman's hair.

"There is little time," The Renegade's voice disturbed the silence. "I can barely reach her."

The Queen tilted her head as he looked up at her, impatient expectation in his face. Slowly she nodded, and lowered herself beside the gurney, raising her hand, to skim the tips of her fingers over the woman's pale face. She felt the stirrings of satisfaction as she watched The Renegade tense as she touched her.

She let her hand trail down over the woman's face and neck, hardly feeling the pulse in her neck as she did. She was using the action in deliberate torment now, delaying the moment, testing his patience. In the end though there was nothing more she could do to delay without angering him – and she still had to get off his ship. So she pressed her feeding hand hard against the woman's chest, and as the contact was established, Queen to would-be-queen, she pushed the strength of her essence into the sickened woman, following the flow of it, finding the injury and winding her energies around the healing of it.

Connected as she was, she felt the momentary panic in the woman when the healing had reached the point at which awareness, if not consciousness, was restored. Her jealousy returned full force as she caught the echo of his mental caress against the woman's mind, soothing and calming – affection. It had once been hers, and the loss of it burned, and almost… almost… she began to draw back, draw away the flow of her life's strength, meaning to feed instead.

…_Michael…_

The woman's mind, as much connected with the Queen's own, picked up her intent, and cried out in warning to The Renegade.

_-gently- -gently- -gently-_

His head snapped up, fixing the Queen with a murderous expression as his hand flashed forward and grabbed her by the throat. He did not speak to her, nor even touch her mind with his, but the cold threat in his eyes was enough to deter her. He had shown her, in no uncertain terms, when they had been together in the other laboratory, that there were many experiences he could, and would, give to her that would be much worse than death if she were to, in any way, harm the woman on whom she had just thought to feed.

Taking another breath, she fell back inside of herself, redoubling her efforts to complete the healing now, and now that the woman was no longer at the threshold of death, she no longer needed to take much care over it. The healing had begun, and would continue now, with the energy to sustain it.

In a sudden, overwhelming stream, the Queen threw back her head and forced the remaining necessary energy through the contact. She was gratified, more than that she was elated when she heard the woman's rasping intake of breath and felt the arching of her back beneath her hand.

It was only then that the Queen noticed something else.

It began as tightness in her breathing and a dull pain that began to flutter at the edges of her awareness. That dull pain became a sudden, sharp bite, and inhaling, crying out even as the woman from whom she tore her hand did likewise, the Queen stumbled backwards.

"I would imagine that about now, you have begun to feel the pain of it," The Renegade said quietly, almost absently as he tended to his Human lover, "A biting pain deep in your belly."

"What is this!" the Queen demanded, snarling at him and instinctively raising her hand, mantling, ready to feed in order to take away the deepening pain.

"As an Elder among Queens," he continued, rising from where he had settled his woman to sleep, "you might be able to sustain yourself – find someone on which to feed and you _might _live long enough to find some way to make your healing efforts permanent, but either way, I doubt very much that you would be able to do that _and_ still incubate the one you carry inside of you." He caught her feeding hand and twisted it painfully behind her back and then, stepping up closer behind her, purred into her ear, "It becomes a matter of choice: your life, or hers."

"Deceiver!" She flailed, struggled with him, but to no avail. "Abomination! You planned this! How could you do this to your _own_ child?"

"I know better than to believe," he hissed, "that she would be any child of mine. No. I did not do this. You did. In your arrogance you allowed yourself to become blind to the dangers. You believed, still, that you could bend my design to your will." He leaned closer to whisper, "I told you once before – never again."

She heard the soft footfall of his approaching minions the moment before he turned her and all but threw her into the arms of the hybrids.

"Escort her to the Dart Bay, put her aboard a scout ship and send her on her way," he said, in a clipped tone, already retreating to return to the Human woman's side. He turned his head to regard her over his shoulder and warned her, "Should our paths cross again, my Queen, do not expect this to change anything."

**

Todd watched, curious, as the fiery streak sped toward the watery horizon. Even though he heard the movement behind him, he did little to acknowledge it, aware that he had left her… at an inopportune moment, but still unrepentant for it. The words – the contact still burning in his mind…

_=save us= =save us= =save us=_

Alicia's hand ran up along the ridges of his spine, in spite of his distraction sending a flicker of fire to lap at his base, stirring his desire once more. She leaned against his back as he growled slightly.

"Come back to bed," she murmured, and he could tell that she was standing on the tips of her toes by the way her balance shifted against him.

He breathed in deeply, and tilted his head, running it so that it made a caress against the side of her face and neck. He couldn't miss her indrawn breath at the gesture… her arousal flooding in to completely rekindle his own as he opened his mind to her, drawing from their interrupted intimacy.

He turned suddenly and lifted her against the cold of the window, kissing her deeply as he linked their fingers and pressed her hand against the wall beside her head. As he broke the kiss, and sank his teeth to nip against the side of her neck, she wrapped her legs around him, gripping the back of his shoulders with her free hand. Even as she gasped, then cried out for him, the echo of another cry called out in his mind.

_=evolution= =evolution= =evolution=_

**

Something wasn't right. In coming through the wormhole, the pains in his gut worsened again. Had Todd lied? Had whatever he had given to him only temporarily staved off the painful transformation, or was some other, unknown, factor at work.

As he cleared the event horizon, he tried to raise his hands to stop the security officers from shooting before they recognised him, but his knees buckled and he was, before he knew what was happening, little more than a ball of pain on the floor of the Gate Room. He hadn't even been able to see if McKay had been successful.

"Get a medical team!" He heard one of the SOs calling out as he fell, but still was not comforted and tried to get up off the floor. What if this still wasn't their Atlantis, but some other parallel universe?

"Someone get Keller down here!" Woolsey's voice added to the confusion of calls. Sheppard tried to sit up, tried to speak, to get someone's attention, but Woolsey just kept on shouting. "Ronon, what the hell happened? It's been almost seven weeks since we lost contact with you!"

"Se— Seven weeks!" Sheppard gasped, managing a sitting position at last.

"Look," Ronon answered, "I can't explain. Wait for McKay. He was right behind me! All I know is that right now, Sheppard's in trouble."

Instead of Woolsey answering, Keller's voice took up the frantic conversation, "I can see that," she said.

Sheppard felt her cool hand against his burning forehead, and he saw her look toward Ronon for explanation, a horrified expression on her face.

"Blood," he gasped, drawing Keller's attention back to him.

"What?" she asked, frowning at him in confusion.

"Blood," he repeated before finally managing a sentence. "You have to take a blood sample."

The effort almost exhausted him and he gestured to Ronon meaning for him to explain. She looked up at Ronon, but Ronon shook his head, and as Sheppard looked up too, he saw the look in Ronon's eyes that cautioned against further talk on the subject in front of Woolsey.

She seemed to understand because in the next moment she said, "All right, let's get him on the gurney. I need to get him to the infirmary; stabilise his condition."

Just as they began to move him, a figure came flying toward them out of the event horizon, turning in midair as it did. Barely a second later, the Stargate shut down.

McKay landed with an unhealthy sounding slap against the side of the gurney they were wheeling in for Sheppard.

"Oh… God!" McKay gasped, winded by his fall. Evidently then he noticed what was happening with Sheppard because he added, "No… no this can't be possible. This… Todd—"

"McKay!" Ronon tried to silence him, but it was already too late.

"What does Todd have to do with this?" Woolsey demanded, and when no one spoke, McKay having realised the error he had made in opening his mouth, the base commander added, "Someone is going to answer my questions or so help me—"

Sheppard sighed, and gathering what energy he had against the pain he spoke up.

"Todd gave me some kind of serum to stop the spread of the virus Michael injected me with." He had to stop as another wave of pain hit him. Through gritted teeth he took several deep breaths trying to banish the pain before he said, "The Gate or coming back here seems to have neutralised it. Keller, you have to synthesise i—"

He broke off as the pain became blinding, for a moment reaching right from his gut to the middle of his brain. Every one of his muscles clenched against the fire flowing through him, much worse than before, but he refused to give in to it, growling to push it away he forced out the rest of the words, "…And fast! God! And someone needs to get… to New Athos… to check on Teyla."

"Teyla?" Woolsey frowned, lost in the confusion of Sheppard's words.

Ronon however frowned at him as though he had just suggested the most terrible thing in the world.

"I just wanna be sure," Sheppard gasped, throwing back his head.

"Maybe if we were to contact Todd, here I mean. Contact _our_ Todd," McKay suggested, looking as though climbing to his feet was more difficult than scaling Everest.

"Why?" Ronon growled, and Sheppard knew it was unlikely that Ronon would readily agree to trust the Wraith commander more than was necessary.

"Well it stands to reason that if the Todd there knew about this kind of thing, our Todd woul—"

"No it doesn't!" Ronon snapped. "We have no reason to believe that the two of them are even remotely alike. Besides—"

"Ronon, please," McKay yelped, and gestured toward Sheppard. "We already know he's been working on finding a way to counter the Hoffan Protein, why not this?"

"What is _this_ exactly?" Woolsey asked, but Sheppard and the others ignored him completely.

"Jennifer," Sheppard gasped, reaching for her hand and gripping it tightly. "If you can't…. if you… if…"

Keller shook her head. "I'll find a way, John," she promised him.

"And in the meantime," McKay said firmly, uncharacteristically staring Ronon down. "We contact Todd, just… to put out some feelers. See if he migh—"

"Mister Woolsey… Colonel," Amelia interrupted softly, "We've received a coded subspace message. It came via the relay station on M5G-227."

Sheppard exchanged a worried frown, first with Amelia, and then with McKay and Ronon.

"From… Todd?" he asked, shivering a little at the horrible sense of coincidence.

"Yes," Amelia answered nodding, "from Todd. He wants to meet with you, Colonel."

_Fin_


End file.
